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What are the pros and cons of overclocking
- Thread starter Smithyoffline
- Start date
ArmchairAthlete
Diamond Member
Pros- free performance boost =D
Cons- if you were really careless maybe you could damage components
-may cause CPU to wear out faster (but actually prolongs usefulness since the CPU won't go obsolete quite so fast when you think about it).
Cons- if you were really careless maybe you could damage components
-may cause CPU to wear out faster (but actually prolongs usefulness since the CPU won't go obsolete quite so fast when you think about it).
OCing can make an average chip into a top of the line chip and extend its usefullness. When things come out that your 2.4 doesn't run very well turn it into a 3.0. It is basically an easy way to put off expensive upgrades. And its just plain ol fun for some of us to see how far a chip will go. Its nice to pay half the price of a top of the line chip and get one anyway.
As for cons- none-as long as you do it right and there is no excessive voltage or heat an OCed chip will be living long after it is obsolete.
As for cons- none-as long as you do it right and there is no excessive voltage or heat an OCed chip will be living long after it is obsolete.
Jeff7181
Lifer
Pro's:
Increased speed
Better price/performance ratio
longevity of the hardware is extended
Con's:
Carelessness can lead to failure
Voids the warranty
Increases heat output (makes small rooms even hotter)
Shortens the life of the CPU (although lasting 10 years instead of 30 isn't such a big deal)
Increased speed
Better price/performance ratio
longevity of the hardware is extended
Con's:
Carelessness can lead to failure
Voids the warranty
Increases heat output (makes small rooms even hotter)
Shortens the life of the CPU (although lasting 10 years instead of 30 isn't such a big deal)
As long as you got good cooling on a o/ced PC and you don't go crazy on CPU voltage increasements you will be upgraded long before the CPU will die. If it does die it was due to a faulty chip or not keeping the CPU cool enough. For example I bought a Celeron 2 533@850 and had it overclocked for over a year at 1.85v, gave it to my sister which ran it for another year and a half and now my bro has that same CPU running at same speeds and hes had it for a year or longer.
Well I bought it used to begin with so I am guessing the CPU is well over 3-4 years old(o/ced the whole time) and is still going strong. That kinda gives you a idea on how long they last.
Well I bought it used to begin with so I am guessing the CPU is well over 3-4 years old(o/ced the whole time) and is still going strong. That kinda gives you a idea on how long they last.
Shalmanese
Platinum Member
Cons: You end up spending insane amounts of money on esoteric cooling and the like just in order to get a performance boost you can't notice without the help of 30 sets of graphs.
Johnbear007
Diamond Member
Barton 2500+ = 85$
Barton 3200+ = 490$
I paid 85$ and got a 500$ processor. Thats a pro to me!
On top of that it's fun! I have never had a component burn out on me yet.
Barton 3200+ = 490$
I paid 85$ and got a 500$ processor. Thats a pro to me!
On top of that it's fun! I have never had a component burn out on me yet.
sciencewhiz
Diamond Member
I read that Intel designs their chips for 7 years. So your 10 and 30 years are a little off.
dullard
Elite Member
Only Pro: You can save money OR get better performance for the same money (depends on which way you look at things).
Cons:
(1) You can destroy your hardware if you aren't careful,
(2) You can get a less stable system but you can always remove the overclock to eliminate this potential problem,
(3) you can run things out of spec and get performance problems that you weren't expecting - such as a sound card playing your favorite music too fast since you bumped up the fsb, and
(4) you can go overboard and spend hundreds of $$$ more for motherboards, memory, and cooling when if you would have just gotten the faster CPU to begin with you might have paid less overall for the same performance.
Most likely you won't be bothered by the cons. So in most cases the pro outweighs the cons.
Cons:
(1) You can destroy your hardware if you aren't careful,
(2) You can get a less stable system but you can always remove the overclock to eliminate this potential problem,
(3) you can run things out of spec and get performance problems that you weren't expecting - such as a sound card playing your favorite music too fast since you bumped up the fsb, and
(4) you can go overboard and spend hundreds of $$$ more for motherboards, memory, and cooling when if you would have just gotten the faster CPU to begin with you might have paid less overall for the same performance.
Most likely you won't be bothered by the cons. So in most cases the pro outweighs the cons.
While we're on the topic, I'm looking to overclock my P4 1.4 chip but don't have the slightest clue how to do it. Anyone care to just point out a starting point or brief summary or how to do it properly and safely? I'll probably also buy a new cpu heatsink/fan to cool it. Thanks.
DaveSimmons
Elite Member
True, but many people who overclock don't have perfect testing skills -- even intel itself got caught by a very very slightly unstable overclock with their first p3 1.13 GHz. It worked fine in all of their testing but TomsHardware got it to crash doing linux kernel compiles.
Overclockers should accept there is always some slightly increased risk of improprer operation in OCing, and should think hard about whether the cost savings is worth it, especially for a computer used for "real work."
If all you do is gaming, then risking a slightly misrendered frame or borked savegame is probably worth the extra performance. Especially with nvidia cards that mis-render frames even at stock speed 😉
I think most of the pros and cons have been brought up. One that I don't think has been mentioned yet though is time. Its a con to me. I would rather spend more money to get x performance then the time it would take to figure out what voltage and FSB I could run at, memory timings, test it blah blah blah. I prefer to just buy the fastest thing out or the product one step under so I can basically just plug it in and go. I also don't like tinkering with my PCs as much as I used to.
OC'ing can be great for some people and certainly has its pros. But its not for me.
OC'ing can be great for some people and certainly has its pros. But its not for me.
That's the best part about OC'ing for me. Tinkering, playing around, and being involved in the system. After the OC process is finished, I typically get bored of my setup and it finds its way on the FS/FT forums soon after so that another OC junkie can fill their satisfaction.
As long as you have your AGP and PCI buses locked in place, you're really only upping your processor, northbridge, and ram. It may take delicate tweaking:
(for me to get from 1700+ to 2600+ took upping my CPU voltage from 1.50 to 1.55 and my ram voltage from 2.50 to 2.63, and I had to loosen ram CAS timing).
Overall though, the risk factor really is small. If you do a failed overclock, modern boards will just not startup properly or continuously restart until you reset the cmos with the simple switch of a jumper or the like. It's not like the stuff just starts burning, lol.
(for me to get from 1700+ to 2600+ took upping my CPU voltage from 1.50 to 1.55 and my ram voltage from 2.50 to 2.63, and I had to loosen ram CAS timing).
Overall though, the risk factor really is small. If you do a failed overclock, modern boards will just not startup properly or continuously restart until you reset the cmos with the simple switch of a jumper or the like. It's not like the stuff just starts burning, lol.
I can totally understand that. I used to be that way. I have been working with comps and networks for around 8 or 9 years now and it was a hobby for 5 or so years before that. So while I do still build my home machines I don't want to mess with the hardware more then I need to. But in the past I felt the same as you 🙂
DaveSimmons
Elite Member
It's a joke about how nvidia fx drivers have traded image quality for increased framerate, for example by faking trilinear filtering.
BTW I'm a geforce owner myself, just annoyed at nvidia's unethical behavior over the past year.
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