What do you REALLY get from OCing?

[OMG1Penguin]

When you OC, you win teh prize.

I don't really understand why you wouldn't overclock.
If you could add 20% more horsepower to your car, at the expense of having it run a little hotter, I am pretty sure it would be a very lucritive payoff.

And no, a 100mhz overclock isn't really worth it IMO. Go all out~

 

[Overkast]

Originally posted by: Concillian

Mostly?

More money in my pocket and less spent on my computer.

Doesn't OCing a CPU theoretically reduce the lifespan of it?

If so, how are you really saving money if you're just positioning yourself to buy a new CPU in a shorter amount of time?

Just curious cuz I don't OC (obviously)... But I am really interested in this topic.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: Overkast

Originally posted by: Concillian

Mostly?

More money in my pocket and less spent on my computer.

Doesn't OCing a CPU theoretically reduce the lifespan of it?

If so, how are you really saving money if you're just positioning yourself to buy a new CPU in a shorter amount of time?

Just curious cuz I don't OC (obviously)... But I am really interested in this topic.

By the time it dies, its obsolete anyway. In 3-5 years they are obsolete, I doubt it would dies in less than 10, never had one die. I still have 2 486 chips in motherboards that work, I just haven;t thrown them out yet !

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: Overkast

Originally posted by: Concillian

Mostly?

More money in my pocket and less spent on my computer.

Doesn't OCing a CPU theoretically reduce the lifespan of it?

If so, how are you really saving money if you're just positioning yourself to buy a new CPU in a shorter amount of time?

Just curious cuz I don't OC (obviously)... But I am really interested in this topic.

Up until earlier this year my Celeron 300 @ 450 was still in service. That CPU was bought about 6 years ago I think. I haven't EVER had a CPU gone bad. So I haven't seen any reduced life that has afected me yet. I think that Celeron 300 had the longest useful life of any CPU I've ever owned.

In machines built for other people I have:
a Slot 1 Athlon 600 @ ~850
an overclocked Celeron something @ ~850 or so (I forget exactly)
A Duron 600 @ ~850

All are running well and have been for years.

In the past I had a PPro 166 @ 200, 2 overclocked pentiums, an AMD 486 something at 133, and a 386 -16MHz at 20 MHz.

All have outlived their usefulness before dying. In fact I've never had a CPU die. The only CPUs I've even heard of having died were:
Sudden Northwood death syndrome P4s (pushing voltage too high)
Cracked Die Athlons/Durons (Putting on heatsinks, this lead to the little pads on the Athlon and flip-chip Pentiums/Celerons)
Extreme overvolting (extreme OC'ers, these people are different from people who OC for value)
Cpus that died of static (rare, more common in memory)

So maybe the life of a CPU is theortically reduced, but I've never experienced it. The people who have experienced it are people who have pushed voltage too high (SNDS is an example of this) If you are running a processor that is reasonably well established, I see little risk.

For the most part people buy a new CPU when the old one is too slow, not when the old one dies... though that environment may be changing in the near future.

 

[Mullzy]

I OC 100% for gaming. If you play older games you don't really notice at all (who cares if you get 120fps instead of 90). But in newer games (like D3) if I can increase my minimum FPS from 15 to over 20 and my maximum from 45 to 55, I'll notice that difference every time I play.

Bottom line... you probably won't notice any performance difference OC'ing unless you are doing something that really pushes you system to the max like:

- Encoding movies/music
- Bleeding edge gaming
- Crunching numbers (seti@home, Prime... etc)
- 3d modeling/rendering

General computing, word processing, bean counting, surfing the net, listening to music, watching DVD's and Divx/Xvid movies... you'll never notice a difference.

 

[tinyabs]

Originally posted by: oldman420
...
i have found that with a mobile barton i get the best performance/stability at 2300 12.5 x 200 1.75 vcore but temps are an issue so i keep it at 11 x 200 at 1.45 vcore it never gets hotter than 45 and as you pointed out it realy seems about the same.

That's a point in my mind too. Although I can run at 2400MHz but i prefer to run it at 2200. The reason is simply noise and heat.

I bought a Barton 2600XP and OC to get the performance of a 3200XP. That's really all to it. I remember OC my Celeron 300MHz to 450MHz and I used it for a good 2 years in college.

I don't think any OC'ers who has a budget would like to buy a top of the line CPU; this is fulfilled by OC a slower CPU.

 

[tinyabs]

Originally posted by: Overkast

Originally posted by: Concillian

Mostly?

More money in my pocket and less spent on my computer.

Doesn't OCing a CPU theoretically reduce the lifespan of it?

If so, how are you really saving money if you're just positioning yourself to buy a new CPU in a shorter amount of time?

Just curious cuz I don't OC (obviously)... But I am really interested in this topic.

It's like hey, you get 2GHz and with 500MHz free if u know how.