To Overclock or not - pros and cons

[Rouzanimaux]

Some gaming builders say overclock & others not - pros and cons

What is crossfire

 

[mbreslin1954]

Crossfire is putting two video cards into one computer.

Personally I don't think over-clocking is worth it. It shortens the lifespan of the product (either CPU or GPU) because they run hotter. Sure, you get 10% or 15% more performance, but so what? The only over-clock I've ever done is on my i7-4770K Haswell CPU, and even then just a little bit. I do a lot of video re-encodes of recorded TV shows with Handbrake, it produces a file about 50 - 60% the size of the original file, and it can take up to 90 minutes to encode, so by giving my CPU a little boost I can cut 10-15 minutes off the encodes. What's nice about my Haswell 4770K is that the overclock doesn't effect it most of the time, it just boosts the top frequency, so that when pushed, such as during a video encode, I get higher turbo frequencies, but the rest of the time it runs normally.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Overclocking is tweaking computer components settings so that it runs faster than the manufacturer specified specs. Overclocking is done to boost performance , but can also affect \ degrade the lifespan of the components.

Crossfire and SLI is running multiple GPU cards.

 

[Plusthinking Iq]

if you manage to overclock gpu and cpu 10%, thats 60fps to 66fps, if you want that you can have it with some thought when buying coolers.
i like the example from mbreslin, its not a do or do not, its about what you can live with. i use the extra cooling performance to underclock if needed to get a near silent gaming pc.
the joy of custom pc is tweaking if you want to and getting custom results, and its fun doing so.