Overclocking - risk and considerations - is it worth it?

[WaiWai]

It is my first time who want to overclock after reading some reviews that one can mildly overclock to get 60-100% gains. It looks impressive.
I am a mild overclocker only. I want to buy some cheap CPUs and overclock them (so they perform like a high-end CPU with less price).

My overclocking principles
I will overclock as much as possible provided that the following conditions are met:
- without shortening my component's life (a very small diminish is acceptable)
- don't spend any/much on cooling device (unless the gains surpass the costs)


1. How risky mild overclocking is?
Originally I think mild overclocking is very low risk. That's why I want to try. But I read someone wrote this in its overclocking guide on the net. This scares me a bit.

- When you overclock a PC, it's never truly stable. The PC was not designed to run with different things at different clock rates that aren't necessarily compatible with each other. What you gain in performance you lose in piece of mind: This thing could crash at any moment.
- Never overclock a PC with important data on it. Overclocking affects the memory and the CPU, and those in turn affect data written on the hard drive. Overclocking can end with corrupted data. You could lose stuff. Keep your overclocking relegated to gaming machines, graphics workstations?anything except a PC with mission-critical or personally-valuable data on it.

Never truly stable? What does it mean?
Does it mean I will still get some crashes or BSOD (although seldom) even though I overclock mildly. If so, it is not acceptable to me. I want to make sure my computer is very stable even after overclocking.

Never overclock if I store important data on a PC? Why?
Does it mean my overclocked PC, even if mildly, will still corrupt my data (although seldom)?
My PC is going to be all-purpose, from working to gaming. Of course hard disk will store personal data and collections. They are not vital but you don't want to lose them anyway. I believe many general users has one PC for all purposes. They will of course have some files or personal data that they value much. This suggestion seems to tell all general users to avoid overclocking.

Please comment and share your experiences.
My overclocking is moderate, not something going to the extreme.


2. Selection on cooling device
For a moderate overclocker like me, what cooling device would you advise me to get?
Should I use the stock fans supplied by the vendor?
Should I buy raw CPUs and get a cheap third-party fan?
If latter, how cheap of fan should I get in order to ensure I can overclock up to the point that further overclock may shorten its life or more expensive cooling device is required?

PS: I think I am going to pick Intel E2140/E2160/E2180, or E4500/E4600 because they are highly overclockable (60-100%) while AMD 64 X2 Dual Core are not (10-20%).

3. RAM
Overclocking-wise, what brand of RAM is good for overclockability?
What RAM speed (DDR2 667 or 800) should I get?
I don't want to spend any extra on RAM as the performance gain is very little. If possible, I will overclock RAM too.
I only want to make sure my RAM speed can keep up with my CPU FSB (1:1 ratio) after it is overclocked. But I have no idea normally what RAM speed I need in this case?

4. Motherboard
What do I need to pay attention when I buy a motherboard regarding the overclocking aspect? I know that a good motherboard is required if I want to overclock my CPU and RAM. But I don't know what factors/features I should look for when I pick a motherboard. Please show me some lights.

Thanks a lot.

 

[A554SS1N]

To avoid "risks" of overclocking, that's why alot of folks here use stress-testing applications such as Prime95 or Orthos I think is another one... I haven't ever overclocked myself (yet ) so i don't know all the apps, other people will come on here and do that, but I'd like to just say that those two quoted statements are scaremongering more than anything, if you manage to get it able to run 24/7 with a stress testing app, it's pretty much a safe overclock. Those statements in the quote are only true if the overclock is above what your particular system can handle, which would be down to you not testing it enough for example. Just make small changes, and don't increase the vcore of the CPU too much. Keep an eye on temperatures, and test the affect of the overclock after each change.

 

[mordantmonkey]

just check the guides here.

if you overclock, you should use a third party cooler. sometimes the stock is good enough for a very small overclock, or maybe more, but often it isn't.
how much you should spend on a heatsink depends on:
the heat output of the processor
how much you want to overclock it

there are plenty of reviews of CPU coolers (even here on anandtech!), just decide what you want to spend and get the biggest bang for your buck. however 100% overclocks are probably going to require $60 heatsinks + fans and also a lot of luck. as well as a voltage increase. see below.

the more you overclock the hotter the chip will get. heat will shorten a processors life-span, however if temperature stays within the safety range of the chip, it won't affect the life span all that much.
the big killer in overclocking is voltage increases. This will definitely shorten the life of the chip. however, what the exchange rate for volts to lifespan lost isn't exactly known. there are definite thresholds that will instantly kill a chip, or kill it within a few months. but again it depends on the processor. a small voltage change will probably not shorten the life of the chip by anything you would care about; it would be obsolete by that time anyway. but it's a sliding scale, so you have to determine how badly you want those extra MHz to risk early death.

personally i overclock only as far as i can stably (24hr stress tests) on stock voltage.
there is plenty of software for testing stability of the system while operating at extremes.

just check the guides here.

you will pay more for boards that overclock well, as they are usually built with better quality components to handle the added stress. for people new to overclocking, i'd suggest an ASUS or a Gigabyte but i've gotten good overclocks on even a cheap ASRock.
DFI's are usually good overclockers, but have tons of settings that might be frustrating for begginers.
regardless of the brand, read reviews about specific boards to find out about overclocking performance/options.
once again, peruse through the motherboard reviews of Anandtech, or the forums. the information is there, but you'll have to find and decide for yourself.

 

[myocardia]

- When you overclock a PC, it's never truly stable. The PC was not designed to run with different things at different clock rates that aren't necessarily compatible with each other. What you gain in performance you lose in piece of mind: This thing could crash at any moment.
- Never overclock a PC with important data on it. Overclocking affects the memory and the CPU, and those in turn affect data written on the hard drive. Overclocking can end with corrupted data. You could lose stuff. Keep your overclocking relegated to gaming machines, graphics workstations?anything except a PC with mission-critical or personally-valuable data on it.

Says the little boy who never could figure out how to overclock his PC. I've never lost a single bit (1/8th of a byte, in other words) due to overclocking. At least not anything of any importance to me, which is really all that counts. Now, I definitely take it slow, working my way up, and do plenty of stress testing, once I reach my final overclock.

But, like I said, I've never lost a single bit of data, nor have I ever had a BSOD, except while testing out a new overclock, of course. And I've overclocked every PC that I've owned, since my first build, which was a 25 Mhz 486 SX. In other words, overclocking requires a tiny bit of common sense, which the author of that quote above obviously doesn't have.

 

[CTho9305]

One thing many people on these forums don't realize is that transistors slow down as they get older. If you test your CPU today and find its maximum frequency, in a year you might start having trouble. Of course, at that point, you might ignore the OC as a possible cause because "it's been rock-solid for a year!".

Another thing many people on these forums don't realize is that anecdotes aren't proof. Nothing is guaranteed. It's great that myocardia hasn't lost data, but this is all statistical stuff. How much of a chance are you willing to take of losing data? 1 in 100? 1 in 1000? I would bet that if the real odds of dataloss were 1 in 100, the 99 people who didn't have trouble would jump on the 1 guy reporting problems and accuse him of being at fault due to incompetence. In practice, as long as you overclock conservatively, the odds might well be less than that.

Keep in mind that many people are disabling the power saving features of their CPUs to hit higher frequencies ("enhanced halt state" and "speedstep"/"cool'n'quiet" in particular). How much more money is it going to cost to run the machine? (50 watts for a year at 10 cents per KWH would be about $44/yr, plus extra cost to run the air conditioner more during summer. You'll ignore this one if you live with your parents.)

The best way to decide if you want to overclock is probably this:
1. Work out how much more it would cost to just buy the faster CPU (say, $50)
2. Work out how much it would cost you if the CPU died, or you lost data, or experienced silent data corruption that you didn't catch until days or weeks later.
3. Work out what the odds of trouble would have to be to make it a financially good decision.
4. Figure out whether you can even notice the performance improvement outside of benchmarks.
4. Realize that you want to do it for the thrill of figuring out the maximum speed of your CPU, or to "stick it to the man", and do it anyway (and don't fool yourself into thinking you're saving money).

 

[DrMrLordX]

Honestly if you're looking to get your feet wet, do a "no vcore adjustment" overclock. Buy a cheap CPU (OEM, save some moolah), put a ~$30 or cheaper HSF on it with the supplied thermal paste (or buy a tube of IC Diamond 7 or Shin-Etsu X23 and use that), and then bump it up in speed until it's unstable and then step back a few mhz. Never raise your vcore and you're good to go. One of the Intel E2xxx chips or an X2-3600+ or 3800+ would be fine.

By leaving your vcore alone, you should be able to achieve stability very easily just by lowering mhz gradually until you achieve an acceptable level of stability. This is what I did with my Sempron 2800+ over two years ago, and it got me a 720 mhz OC with the stock cooling. I've since backed it off a little since it is no longer my primary rig and really doesn't need the clock speed anymore.

Until you've actually done some overclocking and get a feel for how much performance you gain versus how many headaches you get from doing it, it's hard to evaluate how helpful it can be. There's loads of "free performance" out there for the taking if you know what you're doing. It all boils down to how well you select components and how much time you're willing to spend learning about what you've bought.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I know someone that is a "fearless overclocker". He OCs, without doing proper stress-testing. Don't be like him, fighting instability forever after.

As long as you do proper testing, OCing can be a perfectly safe thing to do. As long as proper guidelines and precautions are taken, as far as the limits of temperature and voltage are concerned, then you should be safe.

The simplest OCs are when you don't even increase voltage - as long as temps stay in line, then you're golden.

Buying bigger HSFs can help, but they also cut into the OCing budget. The cheapest OCs are done with stock HSFs, but those OCs are also the most limited. You need to figure out how far you want to go, and how much you want to spend, both in $$ cost and in terms of time, testing out different settings. Don't ever forget to stability test when you've found your "golden" OC settings. Testing is key to a stable OC.