"How do you overclock?" It's a question we hear daily in the HL Forums, and a question repeated thousands of times daily across every enthusiast forum across the web. Overclocking is different things to different people. To the casual user it's an insane practice of tempting fate. To the inexperienced, it's the gateway drug to the enthusiast world. To the budding enthusiast, its a chance to save money by modestly pushing your hardware. And to the die-hard enthusiast community, it's an addictive habit where hardware is pushed to its very limit in a never ending competition to see who has the biggest e-penis.
"How do you overclock?" It's a question we hear daily in the HL Forums, and a question repeated thousands of times daily across every enthusiast forum across the web. Overclocking is different things to different people. To the casual user it's an insane practice of tempting fate. To the inexperienced, it's the gateway drug to the enthusiast world. To the budding enthusiast, its a chance to save money by modestly pushing your hardware. And to the die-hard enthusiast community, it's an addictive habit where hardware is pushed to its very limit in a never ending competition to see who has the biggest e-penis.
We laugh and joke a lot around the forums, but seriously, a lot of beginners come to us asking for help with overclocking. Sending them to more enthusiast minded sites usually has them back within an hour, either wanting to whup some elitist e-geek's ass, or so frustrated they want to give up. Instead, I've decided to put together a basic guide to help people get started in the dark arts. From here you should have at least the building blocks in place, and be able to safely overclock your system to the point where you'll be asking more advanced questions in either our forums, or those spattered across the web.
As I said earlier, we preach to (and cater to) a large audience of beginners. These are the people just beginning to understand computers, having put their first system together. While I'm not big on suicide OCs (extreme overclocking), I believe overclocking has an important place in our community. We all work within a budget - some larger than others - and for those who can't afford a $1,200 processor, buying a $240 CPU and modestly overclocking it can get you about the same performance for a fraction of the price (I'm using a $240 Q6600 that runs at 2.4GHz and a QX9650, which runs at 3GHz for examples). By simply pushing the Q6600 to a 333FSB, you have effectively pushed it to the same clock speed and FSB as the much more expensive QX9650. Lost? Don't worry, over the next few pages we'll explain everything from choosing the various components, to recommending which parts to buy.
A Warning Before Starting Out
Overclocking does carry some risks. First, you'll void the warranty of some components, even with a modest OC. Processor warranties are automatically voided the moment you push them past their default clock speed or voltage. Second, warranty issues aside, overclocking creates stress on your system, and at some point - it maybe a week, it might be 10 yrs - a component is going to fail. If done correctly, overclocking is safe, fun, and a great way to learn system building and upgrading.
For those of you using a Dell, E-Machines, HP, or any other POS sold at Best Buy or Circuit City, you'll likely find yourself out of luck. OEM systems sold at your local retailers are typically put together with sub standard parts, and the BIOS comes locked to prevent you from doing any sort of tinkering (there are a few exceptions). Sell that thing on Flea Bay, and at the very least pick up a boutique system from CyberPower, Puget Systems, Alienware, Hypersonic, or the likes. These systems are put together with off-the-shelf enthusiast parts without proprietary restrictions, and make a very good starting point for the beginner. Still, nothing beats building your own system from the ground up.
What You'll Need
Surprisingly, everything you'll need is free. Below is a list of applications to get the most out of your OC. Some are for checking various system settings, some are for testing system stability:
| CPU-Z |
- An application that gathers information about your system, including clockspeed, FSB, and memory latencies
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| Orthos Stress Prime 2004 |
- An application that tests your system's stability
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| Memtest+86 |
- Some motherboards come with a version of Memtest built in - check your board's user manual
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| Everest 4.0 |
- A very good general purpose application for gatheriung information (temps, overclock, etc)
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| Core Temp |
- An outstanding application that gives you the individual core temps
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| Some paper and a pen |
- As simple as it sounds, its always good to take notes and write down the various settings as you go. You'll also want to bookmark different websites for gathering information.
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