QOTD: Do You Overclock Your PC?

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Tiberiusfury

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I forgot to mention that my RAM is also overclocked slightly (DDR2-850 instead of -800) and I overclock my graphics cards with RivaTuner (with stock cooling) when playing games.
 

69camaroSS

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I had my system overclocked, but then pulled it back. I figure it will keep my power consumption down a bit and will keep my system running longer. Truthfully, unless you are into lan parties and bechmark bragging, the gain is not substantial enough. My Q6600 running at 2.4GHz crunches everything I throw at it without a hitch. Of course I'm running OSX on it most of the time.
 

theblade

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I used to have an athlon XP running with a light OV, now I have a Q6600 @ 3.15GHz with an ASUS V-60 92mm cooler, and 2x 8800GT 700MHz/1800MHz/950MHz, all in a MSI P7N SLI motherboard.
The extra performance is worth the risk, but you have to be careful.
 

abzillah

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I have an AMD 720 tri-core overclocked to 3.57Ghz using a Xigmatek HDT-S1283 cooler, and ram overclocked to 1119Mhz running on a Gigabyte Micro-ATX board.
I have my rig overclocked when I am running games and the power saving mode is turned on to performance. When I am not gaming and just surfing the web, I have the computer run at stock speed and turn on power saving mode and the CPU runs at 800Mhz.
 

computerninja7823

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my rig: E6750, PNY 8800gt, G-skill ddr2-800, 680I mobo, Xigmatek AIO cooler.

i have a E6750 overclocked from 2.66 GHZ to 3.3 GHZ. my 8800gt at 700-1000-1700. my ram at 800MHz.

idle 28-35 degrees C. depends on temp in house. right now with several internet pages up and virus scanner running in background im at 47 degree C.
 

leo2kp

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Yes I overclock. Got an i7 920 to 3.2GHz which is of course a no-brainer. Still dealing with the dual-post issue on the Gigabyte boards so I won't OC further until that's fixed.

Using the lapped Thermalright True Black with 109CFM Thermaltake fan. @ 3.2GHz the i7 runs at 25C idle. Just installed it last night so I haven't done any testing, but I expect it to be nice and chilly even at full load.

I do it to make a relatively cheap processor run faster than the overpriced extreme versions. With upgraded cooling, it can run cooler than those too. I figure, if you can, why not? A slight overclock shouldn't hurt a chip even over the long run and imagine the extra clock cycles you will have gone through in 3 years! That's productivity ;)
 
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I used to, but not anymore. Why? It just doesn't seem to make as big a difference anymore. I think app performance stopped being meaningful around the PIII era, and why overclock for games once you hit 75 frames per second? I guess if you are doing some processor intensive apps like Terragen or something, but then, if you were a true nerd you would be figuring out how to make the software parallel using the GPU, instead of making the crappy hardware run faster.
 

Judguh

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I don't overclock my processor or anything really - mostly because when I buy processors, mobo's, etc... I don't like to risk frying them just to see a marginal boost in performance. I'd rather buy, for example, the Phenom II X4 955 and then maybe some DDR3-1600 memory and enjoy my performance at that level. If i'm feeling agumtious, I'd OC maybe a little. I've never done it in the past so not much reason to now! :)
 

fpsgamingsa

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I guess I have always been addicted to tweaking, tuning , and maximizing systems. Way back in the days of the "turbo" 8086, to my 33mhz 486 that I soldered a 40mhz crystal on so I would have the only 486 40mhz that I knew about for over two years before the 50mhz came out, to my overclocked Pentium 90, and then who remembers the days of dual Celeron 300a's overclocked to 550+mhz?
Currently in my home:
Core I7 920@3.9 with SLI GTX 260s at 705, 1465, 1175
Quad Xeon 3450@3.5 with Xfire 4850's
Q9200@2.8 with 3wayXfire 4830's
Q6600@3.6 with SLI9800gtx+
E4300@3.1 in my Hacintosh
I love doing this and love building systems and customizing them. Been at it over 20 years and still hooked.
 
I definitely OverClock. My Q6600 runs @ 3.2Ghz and is cooled by the Xigmatech S1283. Were it not for the limitations of my 680i chipset, I'd have my Q6600 OC'd higher (3.4 - 3.6).

GPUs on the other hand, I've never had much luck with overclocking that well.

But since so much software these days is unable to fully allocate useage of my Quad Core, I'm forced to OC from 2.4Ghz to 3.2Ghz to gain performance increases in games like Crysis.
 

jonpaul37

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[citation][nom]smartel7070[/nom]I have a Core2Duo E8400, stock 3.0ghz overclocked to 3.6ghz with a Xigmatech s1283 cpu cooler. I overclock because like it says I want to squeeze as much performance as I can from my hardware. I've been overclocking my CPU's since the Pentium 1 days.[/citation]

SAME exact here, well, with the exception of OC-ing since P1...
 

t85us

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not overclocking at all : (sometimes underclocking)
amd athlon x2 5000+
asus m2a-vm (amd 690G+sb600)
2G geil ddr2 800 cl4
:)
 

jmartire24

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» AMD Phenom II X4 940 Deneb 3.0GHz blk edt oced to 3.9 ghz at a 1.55vc » Motherboard » MSI K9N2 SLI PLATINUM » Memory » G.SKILL 4GB 6400 oced to 1000 mhz at 4-4-4-12 » Hard drive » 2x WD 300g raptors in raid 0 » Graphics card » 2x XFX 9800 GT clocked at 750/1850/2114 » CPU Cooler » swifttech apex ultama » GPU Cooler » Ultra performance gpu cooler » PSU » Ultra 1000w psu »

mine is water cooled using all swiftech parts swifttech apogez gtz water block

http://www.techpowerup.com/gallery/2053.html let me know what ya think
 

zshift

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I've got my Core 2 Quad Q9300 running at 3.6GHz (480 FSB if I remember correctly). My mobo is the asus p5q-e, voltages are at 1.34 for cpu, 2.1 for ram. ram is 2x2gb of mushkin pc2-6400 @ 960MHz (5-5-5-18-2t). running my asus eah4870 dk top 512mb at 835MHz gpu/ 1140 Mem. (a quick side note: i have noticed that running my ram in the black slots provides much better stability, and have read this is true for others as well. try it if u have an asus board). overall, i use it for everything i can think of. i game, i benchmark a lot, i like to mess with rendering programs every now and again. i use photoshop a lot, but mostly for casual messing around usage. overall i couldnt be happier with my pc, and overclocking has led to an extremely fast system, way faster than not being overclocked. also, i installed ubuntu 8.10 on my secondary hdd, and with this setup it goes from POSTing to the login window in about 8-10 seconds at the most.
 

powerbaselx

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I OC'ed and benchmarked a lot with a P4 530 system.
Now with a new i7 920 i still don't feel the need to OC since the performance is Ok for now.
 
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Last honest thing I overclocked was my AMD Athlon 3000+ with a ThermalTake Volcano 11, with it's PoT shorted out to provide maximum RPM's on the Fan.. Fan running at around (5600rpm's) strong for several years. Running the CPU steady at 3.2GHz with around 58Deg C. I have Owned & have had it Overclocked since 3200+ was the latest greatest thing on the market & it is still running to this day... underclocked it by .2Ghz recently due to some strange instability issues recently.

I have moved on & stayed away from over clocking current machines due to financial difficulties as a college student :p

Student loan purchased Laptops & Overclocking with no Income.... just didn't sound smart.
 

aznguy0028

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answer is HELL to the YES!

Got a Q9450 when it first came out around a year ago. OC to 3.3ghz using a Zalman 9700 (had it before the Xiggy came out)

Gigabyte X-38 DS4
Mushkin 2x2gb 4-4-4-12
ATI 3870x2 @ 840mhz, Mem - 3644

after the OC from stock (2.66ghz), all games and applications were noticeable faster. pretty conservative OC, but it suits all my needs for what i do and i never had any stability problems since i OC-ed my little beast :)
 
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No need to for me, knowing more intricate details overclocking CPU in these day and age is not worth much; but GPU overclocking is altogether different matter but it was factory-overclocked to begin with.

Crysis and Far Cry 2 ran just fine albeit qualitative hit on an aging AMD X2 3800+/GeForce 9800 GT SC.
 

itdan

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Overclocking to me is just another form of hot rodding. I like to hot rod cars, so naturally, doing the same to computers is just as appealing and fun. There's something about getting the highest performance out of what it is you're working on, whether it's a CPU benchmark or your ET down the drag strip.

I tend to stick to air cooling, but I will dabble with water and what not eventually.
 

OrderChaos

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Yes I do, I overclock my e8400 to 3.85...I could go higher, but get all the performance I need as it is.

BTW this is on air cooling.
 

IronRyan21

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Why wouldn't you overclock? Specs AMD 9950 oc'ed to 3.1 ghz just by multiplier. Thermaltake SpinQ cooler with idle @ 40 c, Asus M3A79-T deluxe Mobo, 4GB Corsair DDR2 1066, ATI 4850. Nice Budget setup. I love it.
 

RADIO_ACTIVE

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HECK YES I OC MY RIGS IT IS JUST PLAIN FUN!!!

Running a E8400 clocked at 3.6 (the sweet spot on stock V). I had it higher but did not like temps, 3.6 is plenty high enough anyway. I am cooling it with a ZALMAN 9500A.

Wife's rig running E6800extreme at 3.4 I got it a bit faster but it was a little bugy in some situations. its cooled with a ZALMAN as well.
 
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