To overclock or not to overclock

[rjbeck]

I am putting together a system from various parts, and among other things I have two chips, a P4 630 and a Pent D 830. Plus I have an Intel 955X mobo. I know that the 630 and D830 can o/c pretty well, but honestly what are the actual gains in overall performance? What would it gain me in gameplay?

I have tinkered with my graphics cards a few times and I got weird colors and shadows. What advantages have you guys seen by taking it up a notch on the CPU?

 

[Mondoman]

Gameplay is dependent on the graphics card, not so much on the CPU. CPU performance will scale linearly with the overclock. The D830 will likely NOT overclock very well, as it's already the 2nd or 3rd highest-heat-producing Intel CPU and near the max speed of the PentD design. I wouldn't expect the 630 to overclock very much, either, but it should do better than the D830, percentage-wise.