To overclock or not to overclock?

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adrenaline

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Dec 18, 2005
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That is the question. I have just purchased an X2 3800+, it is my first homebuilt machine, and I have never overclocked anything other than this.

With some trial and error and reading a lot around the net I have successfully OC'ed to 2.45Ghz with a vcore 1.375 (stock is 1.35). I haven't tested this aggresively for stability yet but my real question is, is it worth it? What am I losing by OC'ing? Will this shorten the life of my CPU (considerably)? My RAM? My motherboard?

Also, I'm not sure about how high clock speeds my RAM can take, two DIMMs 1GB Corsair rated 2-3-3-6 at 400Mhz. I set the divider (is that what its called?) to CPU/12 so at 2.45 it runs roughly 204Mhz. The next step would be CPU/15, but I probably cant run this CPU at 3Ghz can I?
 
its really just trial and error, if it doesnt boot or is gettin to hot for ur taste then just pop out the battery and that outa clear the BIOS and then u can push everything back up to ur last known config that worked
 
ya, overclocking causes more heat to be output by the cpu, and hence forth destorying the life of it. if ur looking at 1-2 years ull be fine, anything higher and ull be in trouble becuase of the heat even with the nice cooling fans. And with all of the heat itll destory everything else in time to, heat kills comps, so to answer ur question in short, yes it will kill the life of your longterm pc, but it will incrase proformence for the short run
 
If you can keep your CPU in the 40's it will last for years, if previous AMD's
are any example. The motherboard bridges are a different story, depends
on how hot each area gets. My friend's Athlon1400 has been running at
near stock speeds for six years, still going strong at 55+ degrees. and
my XP2000 system has been running for as many years, rock steady,
with only 1 80mm case fan.
I might also mention they are both Asus boards, no plug intended. Other
signs that overclocking may not be good for your system are the random
crashes that might occur at your present speeds.
 
ya, but the cpu fan covers the heat output, the damage is where u cant c nething in the cpu with all the excess heat from the transistors again its ur call but i wouldnt if u wanna keep everything stable, and those pcs are stable cuz u have oced nething
 
As long as you have proper cooling for the computer I wouldn't be too worried about the life of your comp. On average processors have about a 1,000,000 hour life span and overlcoking will cut that by about 1,000 hours.
 
Wow, I didnt know processors had a 114 year lifespan. news to me -- but um, i keep it around 45C when OC'ed. so i guess i wont worry.
 
think of overclocking as using nos on your engine in your car...yes you get more speed but you shorten the lifespan of your proc. now will you shorten it enough that you will lose your investment in relatively short order? depends on the cooling. you cool it, you will be fine the majority of the time. you do extreme overclocking, you have other parts you need to worry about and then you have voltage problems and timing problems etc. most people who like to be on the edge of technology dont keep their proc longer than a year or two anyway and with the right cooling and if you dont try for the bleeding edge you will get 2-3 years out of it.

warranties get voided because, like anything, you are doing something the product wasnt intended to do. if you use it like they say, then you can get redress in court if their product sucks. if you dont then they legally wont take the blame...warranties are just legal nonsense meant to keep the people confused and down, DOWN WITH THE MAN! :lol:
 
Generally, overclocking by itself isn't that much of a deal. A chip that would have lasted 12 years may last 7 or 8 years instead (completely arbitrary numbers), but in fact, 7 or 8 years from now, you'd probably have already thrown/gotten rid of the computer. As long as the temperature readings don't jump too high vs. stock, you'll be fine.

The really nasty stuff you have to watch out for is when you start messing with voltages. [warning: the following is very crude.] The individual transistors are designed to read high and low voltages as 0's and 1's. When you bring up Vcore, you're making these voltages jump higher so it takes less time to reach the original necessary cutoffs, thus you can time them faster. However, if you work the voltages up too high, you can fry the chip pretty quickly - leaks, heat/power [proportional to voltage squared, not voltage], and everything in between.

1.375 is fine, but don't go crazy with it. if your ram won't handle the speeds you're trying to feed it, just time it down. make sure you knock your HTT down according, keep it around 1000mhz, less if need be since there's alot of bad and relatively little good it can do
 
just one thing must be said, overcloking a processor to reasonable levels and keeping it warm enought will cut his life much less than performance needs do, so?? who has more than 4 or 5 years the same pc?? dont worry, youll want to buy a new pc until overcloking kills yours, the main processor killers are games! games performance needs kill aour processors and our money easier than heat does ( allways not keeping your pc at 80º, of course ). xDD :lol:
 
Beileve It Or Not Overclocking Dosent Shorten The Life Of The CPU Considerabally.... I Had My Old Athlon XP 2500 @ 2.2GHz For Three Years And Its Still Chugging Along To This Day When I Gave It To A Friend Before I Upgraded To This Machine, Plus By The Time It Does Shorten The Life You Will Have Upgraded To A New CPU Most Likely, So Why Not?
 
No offense, but people like you who post after skimming - who don't bother to actually read and think things through before you post - are seriously becoming a pain.

You used a three year old athlon xp as an example of the hardiness of an overclocked processor, which A) doesn't show whether or not the life was shortened - for crying out loud, you've had it for only three years, B) you failed to notice the ages i mentioned - a processor that would have lasted 12 years, after a good amount of ocing, may last only 7 or 8, and C) the most important point, i - read this carefully this time - already said that you might as well overclock since by the time it breaks even then, it'll be essentially obsolete.

If you now decide that your post wasn't in reply to mine, then don't click reply on my post. Seriously, there's a chronological order for a reason - so comments aren't made randomly, and so you can -first read- what has already been said.
 
as has been said in other threads around, its the voltage that kills, not the heat. It's the internal leakage caused by excessive voltage that fries it. I wouldn't worry about it shortening the life of your processor unless I had the voltage upped to 1.6 volts... then I might start worrying. Until then, there isn't really any shortening of the life span. :)
 
but...., as i know.... yeah, voltage kills but... it does becouse of more voltage means more current and more current means more heat and all that means more electromigration and more current leakages , if you get your cpu cooler you get less electromigration and i dont really now if you get less current leakages too... maybe thats the limit of the overclock you can get, you cant make it stable when there starts to be massive current leakages, but the electromigration is lower when temperature is lower. am i right? :?:
 
yes i agree, but i think it depends on if they are using this technology near its limits or not, maybe they are near the limits of the insulation capability of this technology, however Athlon 64 should be safer to overclock becouse of being a newer technology than intels one,may a be right?. otherwise i dont overclock my pc becouse i think that nobody really needs it
 
It's a question of temperament and pocketbook. If you are looking for a nice working machine that you turn on and off,don't overclock, buy a state of the art system instead. If you can't stand it when your computer works perfectly and you just need to change something, have a stable backup machine just in case you can't read your email anymore :lol:
 
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