Overclocking is overrated. You won't be getting much of a performance increase, for the price you pay with overheating. Here is why: A clock speed is just a frequency your processor uses to crunch through digital logic (instructions). There may be multiple instructions going through the CPU at the same time, so your CPU uses pipelining to synchronize the instructions. When instructions are out of sync, there will be problems (hazards). However, chips usually have Hazard Detection Units (HDUs) which push "bubbles" onto the pipeline in an attempt to re-synchronize the pipeline. Certain logic on the CPU was designed to run at a certain frequency, due to the complexity of the logic, and the limitations of the gates used in the logic. Timing is important in electronics. When you increase the frequency, you may see some performance increases from the logic which meets the new timing requirement. However, most likely, you will also be producing more hazards in other parts of the chip. This is why a ps2 running at 300mhz can outperform certain CPUs running at 2ghz. The logic on the ps2 chip was designed to run at 300mhz. The clock only provides the CPU with a means of flipping on/off gates and FFs. I don't understand why people overclock.
people overclock mainly when their hardware becomes outdated and they are unable to purchase better hardware so they make do with what they have by overclocking... i personally do not like taking the risk that is involved with overclocking so i avoid it...
i totally think that is a risk that should not be taken, especialy on newer systems because its pointless...
I tend to wait for tried and tested overclocking to have been done and posted, this way I know what settings are okay to use. As far as overheating is concerned, you can with good cooling, get an overclocked system to run cooler than a standard cooled system. There are also a lot of CPUs especially that are clocked down from what they are capable of, and many are produced in the same batches as higher rated CPU's, so unlocking the extra potential will do them no harm at all.
Well I believe that pcstats.com and anandtech.com will decide to differ with your assestment. Plus with many highend motherboards that have tons of overclocking tools and corrections flash built into the bios of the motherboard some overclocking is relatively safe. Plus overclocking with the AMD athlon based system has more to with than just overclocking the cpu. Many are overclocking the RAM and graphic cards to get a true overall performance increase. Beside with you logic of wondering why people risk overclocking a cpu with out really getting real world results or not really getting all that much of a performance increase is very similar to why do people purchase the most up to date "Performance Champion" pc when they know in 3 or 6 months a better or faster cpu, graphic card and motherboard comes out. I don't understand why people spend $300 on a computer case without a psu, but people do because they can and they want the very best. So there is some answers right there.
Asus MB with a P4 Northwood 3.4 Overclocked at 10% to 3.74 for over a year, on 24,7 and max 126F full out, idle at 94F lately. Soyo Dragon2 MB with P4 Northwood 2.8 Overclocked 10% 3.08 for over 2 years now. This machine on most of the day, myabe 14 hours. Both machines extremely stable. Memory, FSB, etc. also O/C'd in auto by both boards. It does make a difference. Why do it??? Because you can! Northwood CPU's run way cool to the newer Intel chips, with the STOCK fans as well.
My last machine had the RAM and graphics overclocked as well as the CPU. This is the first time I haven't bothered overclocking from the moment I could safely do so with input from other forums, but I know I will end up overclocking before too long. All parts have excess performance and stability capabilities within them, as manufacturers deliberately wind things down to increase the MTBF of products. Most people that find overclocking a waste of time, are those that start with a pre-built machine that was never intended to allow for overclocking. Those of us that build our own systems, normally have a tendancy towards overclocking, as you have a pride in what has been built and want to see if perform to give its best stats possible. It is a balancing act between overheating/BSOD and that extra performance that has everything working at max potential. I've been builing systems now for over 6 years, and so far have never cooked anything through overclocking.
Overclocking is good if you plan on getting a new system or upgrading your current system and you want to get the best performance for the time being. But yeah it does kill your componenets pretty quickly(PS2 lens died after 2 weeks after adjusting its voltage).
The PS2 lens voltage adjustments are only supposed to be done when the unit has a problem reading either CD or DVD, turning it up for any other reason is asking for trouble. Even then the voltage adjustment has be done very carefully in stages, as it is well known that too higher voltage will cook the laser, most people adjust it downwards before trying it upwards as a last resort. Altering a PS2 lens is more a troubleshooting action rather than an overclocking action, and it bears no real relation to overclocking PC components which are totally different types of hardware.
I'm not denying the fact that systems can't be overclocked. My reasoning is that unless you had the schematics and timing diagrams and dependencies for the entire CPU design, it would be impossible to correctly overclock a CPU. Considering there are millions of gates on a CPU, it would be near impossible to overclock a CPU and expect performance increase from every unit on the CPU. You can overclock and underclock CPUs to a certain extent, but since there are many CPU units and gates, the timing may work for some and not for others. For instance, if you are tuning your clock frequency while testing against 3D Mark, you are tuning the parts of the CPU that are involved in dealing with multimedia and graphics. Other parts that you may use everyday and are not aware of, may not be tuned properly. I'm not sure how much time large chip makers spend engineering CPUs and finding the best frequency range for it to operate at (probably not too much) but I'm just trying to say that overclocking implies a higher clock frequency, which has nothing to do with CPU performance.
