Hi guys, new forum member here.
Welcome to the forums
mychris :thumbsup:
2. I was told that speeds of 3.2 ghz would be fine with a stock intel cooler, can anyone confirm that?
Apologies for not having seen your thread before. I have never owned that processor or any from that platform so I can't really tell you how reasonable those expectations are for a stock cooler with that processor.
1. How risky is it to OC, especially for a newbie like me?
This is a more generalized question that is not processor-specific and as such I can weigh in with some comments.
There are two kinds of risk when overclocking - (1) risk of hardware loss, and (2) risk of data loss.
The
risk of hardware loss usually only comes into play if you are
increasing the cpu voltage. The chip has a built-in thermal safety mechanism so there is no concern for temperature in that sense. If you chip gets too hot then it will either crash the computer (possibly causing data loss) or it will thermal throttle (no crashing) but your performance will actually degrade for a while until the chip cools off again.
Operating at high temperatures is already factored into the chip's planned lifetime by Intel's engineers, so no reason to be worried about it.
But if you start increasing your processor's voltage then those same
elevated temperatures will combine with the elevated voltage and begin to do bad things to your chip.
But how bad is "bad"? Depends on how hot you run the chip at that point, and with how much "extra" voltage. 10-15% extra voltage is generally not going to degrade your processor fast enough for you to ever realize it. You might end up taking a chip that would have otherwise survived for 10yrs at stock voltage and reduced that lifespan to say 8 yrs. But do you care if your chip dies in 8yrs instead of 10yrs?
But the hardware risk is that you might end up shortening the lifespan of your processor to the point where it degrades to the point of being a problem in say 3 months or 6 months (or tomorrow). That is the risk we all take when OC'ing. Risk of hardware loss.
The second one is more sinister,
risk of data loss, because it can be more difficult to detect that it is occurring...and by the time you detect it the damage is done.
What do I mean by data loss? Obvious stuff like corrupting your OS installation to the point where performance suffers or the OS starts hanging/freezing/etc. But it can be worse, you go to open a file on your hard drive and it is corrupted, irreplaceable photos, spreadsheets, etc.
It is called silent data corruption and it really does happen. It can happen on your computer even when not overclocked, but the probability of it happening on any given computer goes up if that computer is overclocked (higher chances for the higher the OC).
Some people don't care about risk of data loss, they have a gaming computer and if files get corrupted then they can just reinstall as needed. Other people depend on their computers to make their paycheck and for them a corrupted file can be economically fatal.
So there you have it.
Risk of hardware loss, risk of data loss, and possible both are in the mix when you OC.
(not to talk you out of it, I OC almost all my computers
)
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