Finally, I take no responsibility for what you do with the information in this guide. Overclock your hardware at your ow

[Maximilian]

F*CK YOU AND THE REST OF YOUR FAGOT BUDDIES AT AnandTech. BANN THAT PRICK!

Well, you know this is vacation time. I don't even have to tell you what you did wrong here.
Markfw900
Anandtech Moderator

D: lmao, okay now im gonna read this thread

 

[Habeed]

Another factor : suppose you fry your 980x through heavy overclocking. You paid $1000 for the chip, and at least $900 of that money went straight to Intel. Intel sold the chip with an unlocked multiplier, so clearly they intended for you to play with pushing the specs on it.

Anyways, morally, what harm do you cause Intel if you do abuse the RMA? Manufacturing a new 6 core processor and mailing it to you probably costs Intel less than $200. Thus in this example Intel still makes tons of profit on the deal.

Now, part of the cost is that a processor represents Intellectual property : when you buy one you are buying a "license" to that IP. But if you turn in your old chip and they send you a new one, you still only have 1 license.

I would suspect that i7s fall in a similar area. I doubt it costs Intel more than $100 to manufacture a single i7 chip.

And, come to think of it, for this particular example we need to talk about marginal costs. The marginal cost of an i7 or a 980x is probably less than $50. (aka the costs of making just one more chip, which means you can ignore the costs of the fab equipment for the purpose of this comparison)

Technically speaking even if you were to abuse the heck out of the RMA process all day, and lots of people were doing this, it still wouldn't raise the costs that others pay for processors. Your actions would have the effect of lowering Intel's monopoly rents.

Anyways this kind of thing is self-limiting. You won't get much of a performance boost by overvolting to 1.5 volts +, and you'll lose any time you saved by having the RMA the darn chip every few months.

Intel is going to start charging all of us a price premium for unlocked CPUs, with OCing impossible without paying that. Once they do that, I think this argument will change to "overclock it all you want, and if it fails get a fresh one from Intel"

 

[Markfw]

Another factor : suppose you fry your 980x through heavy overclocking. You paid $1000 for the chip, and at least $900 of that money went straight to Intel. Intel sold the chip with an unlocked multiplier, so clearly they intended for you to play with pushing the specs on it.

Anyways, morally, what harm do you cause Intel if you do abuse the RMA? Manufacturing a new 6 core processor and mailing it to you probably costs Intel less than $200. Thus in this example Intel still makes tons of profit on the deal.

Now, part of the cost is that a processor represents Intellectual property : when you buy one you are buying a "license" to that IP. But if you turn in your old chip and they send you a new one, you still only have 1 license.

I would suspect that i7s fall in a similar area. I doubt it costs Intel more than $100 to manufacture a single i7 chip.

And, come to think of it, for this particular example we need to talk about marginal costs. The marginal cost of an i7 or a 980x is probably less than $50. (aka the costs of making just one more chip, which means you can ignore the costs of the fab equipment for the purpose of this comparison)

Technically speaking even if you were to abuse the heck out of the RMA process all day, and lots of people were doing this, it still wouldn't raise the costs that others pay for processors. Your actions would have the effect of lowering Intel's monopoly rents.

Anyways this kind of thing is self-limiting. You won't get much of a performance boost by overvolting to 1.5 volts +, and you'll lose any time you saved by having the RMA the darn chip every few months.

Intel is going to start charging all of us a price premium for unlocked CPUs, with OCing impossible without paying that. Once they do that, I think this argument will change to "overclock it all you want, and if it fails get a fresh one from Intel"

NO. Its morally wrong, and costs us all more. Now (as said) if you "don't overvolt", thats fine, if it then won't run at stock, as that won't injure it, and rma, thats OK (IMO).

But if you put 1.6 vcore, burn it out, and then expect another processor under warranty, you are costing everybody else money. Or if it won't overclock and you RMA hoping for a better chip, thats wrong.

This is all I was trying to say.

 

[Habeed]

Morally wrong like bribing an OEM to not use the competitor's product? Moral decisions in the real world are a heck of a lot more complex than simple analysis indicates.

In any case, when I OC I stay within temperature and voltage specs (100 C, 1.375 Vcore). If the chip dies before the 3 year warranty is up I'll ask Intel for a new one.

 

[taltamir]

i don't think it has been mentioned, but some companies do allow overclocking.
not all companies are one big entity. in the end each company is run by different people, who have different opinion on how to handle things like RMA.

 

[SickBeast]

To say that RMA fraud makes computer hardware more expensive is a bit of a stretch IMO. Supply/demand and "perceived value" determine the price of things AFAIK.

I'm not saying that RMA fraud is ok; I'm simply saying that getting all in a tizzy and having a witch hunt is a little over the top IMO.

 

[Ben90]

You can only change the voltage by a small amount in the BIOS, to the point that it could probably never kill a CPU. Modern CPUs also have so much thermal protection, that they're nearly impossible to destroy.

A volt mod could do it, but if you were to do that, the manufacturer would be able to tell (plus they didn't allow you to do that to begin with).

Actually you would be surprised. I bought the cheapest x58 board I could find at the time, an Asus P6t SE which allows 2.1 Vcore.

CPUs are near impossible to kill running stock settings due to how far they can throttle themselves, but 2.1v will make short work of a CPU.

 

[Ben90]

Morally wrong like bribing an OEM to not use the competitor's product? Moral decisions in the real world are a heck of a lot more complex than simple analysis indicates.

In any case, when I OC I stay within temperature and voltage specs (100 C, 1.375 Vcore). If the chip dies before the 3 year warranty is up I'll ask Intel for a new one.

1.375 is actually not within Intel's spec under reasonable operating conditions. I can't open .pdf files right now, but go ahead take a look. There will be a graph that shows maximum Vcore in relation to amperage. When amperage goes up, maximum Vcore goes down.

I believe under standard load conditions, maximum Vcore is around 1.25-1.3V. Off the top of my head of course.

 

[Idontcare]

To say that RMA fraud makes computer hardware more expensive is a bit of a stretch IMO. Supply/demand and "perceived value" determine the price of things AFAIK.

I'm not saying that RMA fraud is ok; I'm simply saying that getting all in a tizzy and having a witch hunt is a little over the top IMO.

Help me understand where that logic takes us when applied to other crimes of theft.

Shoplifting? It's just a witchhunt and shoplifting doesn't affect the prices the rest of us pay because shoplifting doesn't affect supply/demand?

Credit card fraud? Insurance fraud?

I fail to see how warranty fraud is some kind of special case situation where we suspend all rationality of its financial impact...unless you are actually going to take the position that shoplifting and fraud of any sort have no connection to prices that we ultimately pay?

 

[muskie32]

My uncle's laptop broke down a couple of weeks ago and it's out of warranty. He called HP and they said it would cost $300.00 just to look at it.....do you think HP feels any guilt?

Just reminds me of a video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T26hP75Q3I

 

[SickBeast]

Help me understand where that logic takes us when applied to other crimes of theft.

Shoplifting? It's just a witchhunt and shoplifting doesn't affect the prices the rest of us pay because shoplifting doesn't affect supply/demand?

Credit card fraud? Insurance fraud?

I fail to see how warranty fraud is some kind of special case situation where we suspend all rationality of its financial impact...unless you are actually going to take the position that shoplifting and fraud of any sort have no connection to prices that we ultimately pay?

I see your point.

My rationale was simply this: Say for example 10,000 people suddenly fraudulently RMA their graphics cards to AMD. Miraculously, no one at all RMA'ed anything to NV. Do you really think AMD would raise the prices on their products to compensate? If they did, nobody would buy their products.

If anything, stuff like this affects the profitability of hardware companies. IMO they would go broke before they would significantly raise prices to compensate.

That said, RMA fraud probably affects all the companies equally and thus it probably does increase our hardware costs.

 

[Markfw]

I see your point.

My rationale was simply this: Say for example 10,000 people suddenly fraudulently RMA their graphics cards to AMD. Miraculously, no one at all RMA'ed anything to NV. Do you really think AMD would raise the prices on their products to compensate? If they did, nobody would buy their products.

If anything, stuff like this affects the profitability of hardware companies. IMO they would go broke before they would significantly raise prices to compensate.

That said, RMA fraud probably affects all the companies equally and thus it probably does increase our hardware costs.

Yup.

And not to go too far off topic, but exactly related, do you know why health care cost so much ? a 20-30% overhead to pay for malpractice insurance. You have seen the ads, so you know what I mean. Every scumball ambulance chaser costs us all a lot of money.

The exact same thing (but not in the same percentages) is why hardware cost what it does.

 

[OCGuy]

You can only change the voltage by a small amount in the BIOS, to the point that it could probably never kill a CPU. Modern CPUs also have so much thermal protection, that they're nearly impossible to destroy.

A volt mod could do it, but if you were to do that, the manufacturer would be able to tell (plus they didn't allow you to do that to begin with).

Huh? You can "fry" a chip pretty damn vast, and it doesn't have to do with temperature.

 

[Halogen23]

As many enthusiasts do, I never even got the chance to see if my PhenomII would run at stock speeds with the stock cooler- it was only after I had lapped my cpu, overclocked it and overvolted it to 1.45v for several months did I realize that the thing would overheat with the stock cooler and thermal paste. Would I have tried to RMA it if only I hadn't lapped the thing? Damn no. I know that would have been wrong because I chose to take it way beyond what AMD certified it to run at.

Yet I'm not perfect either. Once upon a time, I was installing a fan inside my case while my newly built system was up and running, I dropped the screwdriver and -ZZZZP- it barely touches a couple leads on the back of my vid card i just paid $300 for and totally borks it. I knew it was wrong, but I RMA'd it anyway. I was younger and definitely not as mature as I am now.

Today, if given the chance to do it again, I would make the hard choice and save up to purchase a new graphics card. I might even make an honest plea to the manufacturer who supplied the warranty, in hopes that they may be generous with me and throw me a bone and overlook my mistake to reward my honesty. It's always worth a shot.

Now I see, as a grown man, you really do either choose between sacrificing convenience or your character and, in the end, it defines what kind of man you are.