Overclock switch?

[chico1st]

Hi there i was wondering if there are motherboards out there which will let me switch between underclocked (normal usage) and overclocked/stock clocks with a switch or something.

that would be ideal for me

Thanks!

 

[EXT64]

I know Gigabyte (and probably many others) let you save BIOS profiles. So not as convenient as a switch, but a whole lot easier than resetting 20 settings every time.

 

[EXT64]

See the "BIOS - Saving CMOS" section

in here:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/272698-30-gigabyte-guide-read-first

 

[jsc]

You mean, without rebooting? I don't think so.

When you overclock using the BIOS and you boot, the CPU reads the BIOS settings once when you first boot and stores the settings in system memory.

If you are using an Intel CPU, I recommend that once you finalize your OC settings, go ahead and re-enable SpeedStep or the AMD equivalent.

For example, one of my systems is an OC'd Q6600. At stock speed it idles at 1.6 GHz (266 MHz X 6) and under load, it jumps to 2.4 GHz. When OC'd, it idles at 2.4 GHz and runs at 3.6 GHz under load. Perfectly stable.

 

[EXT64]

I've found for i5's (and thus I assume i3/i7's) speedstep (downclocking) is no longer that necessary. My i5 no longer downclocks (after OC/turbo off) however the system still idles at the same power and is only a watt or two higher in low CPU load activities.