Why is overclocking so important.?

[chinthakapathirage]

Please don't take this as an offensive question. I watch gameplay videos on youtube. And something bothers me a lot. It's that most of them play the games with OC'd pcs. It is very hard to understand this. I mean if they have some old cpu's I can understand. But all these guys with core 2 duos, core 2 quads overclock to something like 3.6ghz just to play crysis or farcry. Is this needed? Can't you play any of these new games with the stock speed with real smoothness?? Why do people want to overclock when they have the perfect kickass cpu's?? When you can do everything smoothly with the stock speed?

 

[smartel7070]

Please don't take this as an offensive question. I watch gameplay videos on youtube. And something bothers me a lot. It's that most of them play the games with OC'd pcs. It is very hard to understand this. I mean if they have some old cpu's I can understand. But all these guys with core 2 duos, core 2 quads overclock to something like 3.6ghz just to play crysis or farcry. Is this needed? Can't you play any of these new games with the stock speed with real smoothness?? Why do people want to overclock when they have the perfect kickass cpu's?? When you can do everything smoothly with the stock speed?

No it's not needed.

Why ? Because we can.

It's all about getting more bang for your buck.

 

[atomicWAR]

its totally optional to overclock (fulltime @ 3.6 haha funny). Personally i choose to because i have tri-sli (8800gtxs), a good CPU for it with a water block. With 45nm core 2's its basically a free speed boost. I get slightly better scaling and higher FPS when i crank down game setting at 1080p. While most games are fine at stock, if i didn't over clock i would have to turn off my vsync, relax texture quality and filtering more then i would like on a few games...most notebly crisis & warhead, far cry 2, COD 4 & WAW, Fallout 3, etc. smartel is right...its all about the bang for the buck. I pay more I want more.

 

[jitpublisher]

It's like a button on the dash of your car, or your motorcycle, that if pressed gave you 10~20% more horsepower instantly without really hurting anything or using more gas. Wouldn't most people have the button pushed in all the time?
And, on a different line of thought, overclocking is a choice made by enthusiasts who simply like to see what they can get out of their hardware.
Since gaming can be one of the most demanding things you can ask of a PC,
naturally gamers are pushing for the fastest speeds possible. Think of gamers as the PC's form of race car drivers.
It's also simply human nature, we want more whether we need it or not.
Thus, the huge financial crisis we have right now. It is the bubble finally bursting from everyone living on borrowed money. Always wanting more than they can afford, and the banks giving it to them to try and make an easy buck.
Long story short, everyone actually could make do with a lot less, whether it is a PC, the car you drive, the home you live in, the food you eat, the 750 channels of cable, an Iphone, but are we every really going to do that? Ha! Unlikely.

 

[Zenthar]

People do it simply because it's a "free" upgrade. Moreover, you will often see review/benchmarks with OCed CPU so you can see how much CPU speed actually impact the games.

You also have to understand that people who post these videos are computer enthousiasts, they like to play with that stuff. If you searched on car forums, you would wonder why "everyone" is moding their cars. The internet is somehow biased toward people who are technologically inclined .

As for personal OC habits, I normally run my CPU with stock cooler and speed for about a year before OC and switching to a 3rd party cooler. To me it's just a ~30$ upgrade (for the cooler) in the life of the system.

 

[Zenthar]

It's like a button on the dash of your car, or your motorcycle, that if pressed gave you 10~20% more horsepower instantly without really hurting anything or using more gas. Wouldn't most people have the button pushed in all the time?

Reminds me of the "Turbo" button most 386/486 PCs had. Even non-enthusiasts had is enabled ... "free boost".

 

[evongugg]

I paid $200.00 for a processor. It is running at the speed of a $1,000.00 processor. I saved $800.00.

 

[Guest]

^ exactly...

I bought a 1000$ system... and it performs the same as a 4000$ pre-built system from dell... I saved 3000$...

 

[notherdude]

Why not OC? It's a free upgrade to a more powerful and expensive processor. Yes, it may reduce your CPU life over the long haul but that process is slow slow it takes years and years and by that time you will have long since moved on to a new CPU.

Overclocking became a popular hobby back when PCs were struggling to run games in 3d accelerated mode (1990s ) and those extra few frames made a real difference. At this point the benefit is marginal. You could make a good argument that its a bit of a waste of time and money to buy expensive coolers and water cooling systems but if you invest sensibly I still think its worth it. OC your GRAPHICS card makes a much bigger difference in game frames, as a general rule.

 

[jitpublisher]

thogrom, you are a wise, informed buyer, you cannot really say that you saved 3 grand just because you did not purchase a Dell.....IMHO, anyone who would pay $4000 for a Dell is simply an idiot.
Again, this is only my opinion, but I see your point.

 

[B-Unit]

evongugg hit the nail on the head as far as my reasoning behind OCing. Prime example is the C2D E8xxx series. E8400, 3.0Ghz, $165. The top dog, E8600, only runs 333 Mhz faster, yet costs over $100 more. Why pay that when you can get it plus more for free?

 

[Guest]

not a good point but a point all the same

I saved more like 1000 - 1500 $ more likely, for very similar performance... but w/e

 

[stoner133]

But face it overclocking is a lot like building a hot rod, you can spend the money on the correct parts but if you don't know how to tune it your going to be in for a lot of headachs. You may not get the same performance out of two identical systems either. Increasing your CPU's clock speen by .2 to .3 over its listed speed isn't going to be even noticable in the normal operation of your system. If your new to overclocking do a bunch of reading first.

 

[TwoDigital]

It's like a button ... that if pressed gave you 10~20% more horsepower instantly without really hurting anything or using more gas. Wouldn't most people have the button pushed in all the time?

Small clarification... it DOES use more gas (power, in this case) but the point is correct. If people have read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" there are two types of consumers - those who are happy following the prescription and those who like to tinker and rebuild. The overclockers represent those who like to tinker with things that already work to try and 'tune' them to work even better for their application.

 

[assasin32]

I OC because I can use the performance gain, and I can push my cheap system to compete with computers that cost a couple grand easy if their prebuilt (at the time it was built). Let's see I gained a 20-30fps increase from when I OC my e2180 from 2ghz to 3ghz, than another 10fps from OCing the GPU (which was factory OC, when I got it). Than I tightened the timings on my ram, so let just ignore that one since it doesnt amount to much.

So overall I gained a 30-40fps increase in games that I play from overclocking. Now just for fun lets include new drivers the ones with PhysX, that gave me another 10fps boost as well in games. So im getting an avg of 40-50fps increase in games that I play from OCing and a driver update.

 

[woshitudou]

I OC because I'm poor and I can't afford teh awesome graphix!

 

[enaher]

Cause its fun as hell i remeber my first OC a Pentium D 805 low FSB High Multi at 3.8 outperformed systems that cost almost twice as much... and kept the house warm during winter

 

[zodiacfml]

actually, your question is quite inaccurate. it is in Crysis and Farcry you would like more cpu power because in those games it is expensive to get past 60 FPS in high quality settings.
you would have to get a core i7 with dual card setup, and still overclock it to get near that 60 FPS.

though i see your point in 80% of games like Half life 2 wherein you get more than 100 FPS with max details on a decent video card.
If you only knew, overclocking today is a lot easier and offers more reward compared many years ago, either it is difficult to do or is running very hot and consuming a lot of power.
in the coming years, watercooling a cpu will be less useful maybe only video cards.

 

[assasin32]

Cause its fun as hell i remeber my first OC a Pentium D 805 low FSB High Multi at 3.8 outperformed systems that cost almost twice as much... and kept the house warm during winter

I know my computer is keeping my room the warmest room in the house, and the windows cracked for fresh air, while the rest of the house is closed up tight. I kindve been thinking how nice it would be to have a Pentium D lately with how warm those things runs, so I can OC it and keep my room nice and toasty

And yes im being serious, I never been happier to have a computer in my room.

 

[dallasjoh]

I overclock, just because I can!!

 

[Winly]

people overclock to get more juice out from the part, also you save some money by doing it, ex: a expensive CPU that u cant aford, just buy a good overclock... one and push it, and who-ala you have almost the same one without paying more. and finally for fun lol

 

[w3iner]

I constantly break parts I can't really afford to replace, but I just love OCing! (I just got done frying a PSU on a Phenom System I had OCed this afternoon, had to replace with a 120$ PC Power and Cooling PSU)

 

[V3NOM]

the point is 1: getting more fps 2: beating other people - the competition and 3: buying a cpu a third of the price and making it go faster than something triple the price

satisfaction guaranteed

 

[JDocs]

Overclocking is important for different people for different reasons.

For my brother its to get his system able to run games. For me its to get my machine playing all the latest games at 1080p+ (yes, including Crysis).

However one thing we can all agree upon is that its almost an art form. More importantly when you overclock / tune a PC it becomes more than just another PC you've assembled. Its your machine then. Your choice of parts, your choice of customization and the results are yours to enjoy.

 

[atomicWAR]

jdoc, well said!