Features - QOTW: do you still overclock your PC?

[ghostdogma]

The last time I overclocked any of my components was back in the days when socket 775 Core 2 Duo and GeForce 8800's ruled. It was cool to take inexpensive parts and make them run 50% faster to match the performance of the top-tier brethren.

I think the spirit of overclocking has faded quite a bit. There are several reasons why I think this is so. In some cases, it's too easy because of one-button overclocking, which defeats the fun of pushing your system through trial and error. Entry level boards and other parts are no longer capable of being tweaked, despite the fact I clearly recall paying $80 and $120 respectively for my first two overclocking boards and pushing cheap Celeron and Pentium parts to their limits. Boards that are capable of insane overclocks are now stupid expensive and overly bloated - I honestly don't understand boards like Gigabyte's G1 series or Asus's ROG parts with their I'm-eating-ramen-noodles-for-the-next-six-months price tags and I-don't-think-I'd-ever-use-those features. Lastly, I think components have achieved a point of performance where pumping clocks and voltages doesn't matter anymore except for the dedicated (and, might I add, wasteful) few.

If I were to place blame for this paradigm, I point my finger firmly at the community and manufacturers. The community demanded parts that could be tweaked and features added, and the manufacturers obliged and capitalized on their demands. The end result is overclocking isn't fun anymore, if not arguably pointless.

[Shooty*]

I'm behind the curve at the moment, with.... I can't even recall what kind of processor i have at the moment... whatever Scan had when they were out of Q6600s. I have it over clocked as a matter of course, its been like that for about 2 years, no problems.

Frankly, don't have time to muck about with multipliers and that anymore, what with kids et al.

Edit: Oh, yeah, a Q8200. as revealed in my system over there on the left. That's the one.

[Shooty*]

...back in the days when GeForce 8800's ruled.

.... Are you suggesting that they no longer rule?

...

Oh. Should I be upgrading?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I still cannot vote!!

I am a SFF PC fan and would want to overclock my Core i3 2100 if Intel had not decided to clamp down on it!! My previous SFF PC was a Shuttle and I overclocked all the CPUs I had.

However,three of my mates have Athlon II X3 CPUs and for such a cheap CPU they are fun to modify. Had one unlock to a Phenom II X4,another to an Athlon II X4 and one couldn't unlock. The last one hit 4GHZ which is not too shabby either.

[dave87]

My main machine is running an overclocked Q6600 (@3.1ghz) with 6gb of RAM and an ATi 4850. Seems to manage everthing I've thrown at it

TBH, I don't game on the PC much (apart from the LANs) so mine is really there for quick multitasking, rather than bleeding edge performance - hence not really needing to upgrade to the i Series Intels or latest AMD processors.

My laptop until recently was a Core Duo T2something running at 2ghz with 2gb of RAM and a 1680x1050 15.4" screen, and it handled all the office type tasks I asked of it. The demise of the battery and possibly an issue with the graphics card prompted an upgrade. My new Lenovo has a 2.8ghz C2D T9600 with 4gb of RAM and a 1920x1200 15.6" Screen. As fast as I need, and has a workstation FireGL inside incase I need some graphics oomph - rest of the time it runs on an intel integrated graphics chip so the battery lasts longer (switchable on choice).

More than quick enough, though I do keep thinking it would be a fair bit quicker/more responsive with an SSD...but that is for another day!

[Output]

Up until recently, I had never overclocked and simply just stayed with the stock speed. I recently decided to do so however as a test, though as my motherboard isn't one suited to overclocking it was only stable at a 300MHz increase.

[OilSheikh]

The blame rests with Intel, releasing only special K processors which can be OC'ed. Compare this with S775 processors, where all could be OC'ed. Then, there's the chipset. You can only OC on certain chipsets and not on the entry level boards. Compare this with S775 .. yh same again!

Plus, parts are expensive these days. Everyone is scared to OC, in case it breaks the baord or the CPU!
Entry level S1155 boards cost £50. Average price of entry-level S775 boards were £30 and OC'able. i7 2600k costs around £250. One of the best chips for the S775, Q6600 G0 cost £100 in its days.

[TheVoice]

Never really bothered with overclocking since my AthlonXP 2500 days. Fiddled with mild GPU overclocking now and then but generally, my luck with PC stuff isn't particularly amazing so I don't fancy tempting fate further.

These days, I've moved away from the 'enthusiast hardware' scene altogether; I bought a Dell XPS 8300 recently and it's been superb. I just can't be bothered with custom hardware any more or dealing with RMAs, warranty returns to other countries etc. At least with this thing Dell will just come and get it if it goes wrong.

Plus it was a bargain, £600 for an i72600, 8GB of RAM (which Dell upped to 12GB for free due to an order error), 2x1TB HDDs and a Radeon 6870 1GB. Couldn't have built one for that money.

[miw]

Haven't played with the very latest generation processors, but I've been overclocking to some extent since the pentium days when overclocking meant changing jumpers on the motherboard. My feeling is that mild overclocking is easier than ever these days. So easy in fact that it's not that much fun any more. I still mostly overclock a few notches but do it a lot less because the power usage goes up so fast that the extra expense in electricity is not worth it.

[ScoTTisH-GingeR]

Running a nice little phenom 2 555 black with unlocked cores running at 3.7 and stable using a on a gigabyte lower end 770 chipset based board as overclocking and tweaking goes im all for it, quad core for the price of dual with a nice little overclock i aint stopping anytime soon.

For people who cant be bothered with overclocking and tweaking buy a dell or something, but the way i see buy new pc bits is reading reviews, forum posts on anything that catches your eye finding out which slight model change could make life easier and better. hell building a pc takes me a week to a month just picking my parts then an hour building it and tweaking it when i want a laugh to squeeze out the last drop of power i can get before it blue screens or goes pop.

[Tattysnuc]

As per sig, I fold, so to go for the bonus points I overclock as much as I can, and stay within safe guidelines and temps.

1x2600k rig at 4.6
1x2600k rig @ 4.5
1x2600k rig @ 4.2
1x950 rig @ 3.22

For me, it's about getting as opening up as much power as possible with the machine as stable as possible, while trying to maintain silicon life. To keep the rigs alive, all are watercooled except the 950 rig, which I'm waiting on a replacement pump before I get that up to/over 4Ghz.

It's a diminishing return, but it's a hobby for me building and maintaining these rigs. Next project will be to set up a proper home network with a copy of Server 2011 and professional grade OSes rather than Home-Premium, but that's more to do with me learning and wanting to have my own infrastructure to learn from.

Overclocking has enabled me to keep rigs competitive in the folding arena for longer, and to get the most out of my rigs. The reality is that over the past year despite pledging no upgrades, I've actually upgraded more to buy the top end, or the best that I can afford and now there wont be any more upgrades.

Who am I kidding. Bring on those 6 numbers tonight and I'll be changing again....

[Tattysnuc]

PS. Still can't vote!

[B0FHY]

I overclock purely for the ego value of having 8 threads at 4.8GHz. Over the years though it's grown from purely an e-peen contenst into a hobby within the hobby. I enjoy spending my time cranking up the voltages and adding to my watercooling system (with the aim of 5GHz on all 8 threads by Christmas).

Do I need that much raw processing power? No. And I doubt there are many who do.... at least not many that are for legitimate purposes

[MSIC]

I currently have a Sandy Bridge 'Pentium' CPU sitting in a Z68 motherboard, and this CPU cannot overclock - but was bought as a deliberate place holder, to either slot in a 2500k (and overclock) or even ivy bridge. Overclocking still has a clear role, although i do agree that its relevance is diminishing.

[chuckskull]

Still running my E4300 overclocked. Can still play the latest greatest games on a near 4 year old chip that cost £40. Bargain.

[Terbinator]

Poll is still gimped here.