overclocking in 3xs question.

[Skaramush]

Ive never had overclocked system before and i was wondering since the advert on the the pc i bought says " Not only is the GTX460 a potent card for the price, the 3XS System Engineers have overclocked it too!! " So both gfx card and cpu are overclocked then what does this mean in terms of components life time? Does this mean they will always undergo more stress or only if i push it or?

[jim]

It's largely related to voltages and temperatures. If either are too high, then you're seriously risking the long-term life of your components.

If you keep them in check, at safe levels, then maybe you'll reduce lifespan to 10 years or so, but that's hardly a big deal - there's not much point overclocking a 10 year-old graphics card!

So basically you're putting your faith in Scan to choose safe settings. And to be honest, there's every incentive for them to do that, because if they run things too hot, or at too high a voltage, then they'll fail, and Scan will be replacing the parts at their own cost. Don't forget that they test all of their 3XS rigs for temperature related issues by running them at full load for 24 hours before shipping them out.

I'd be fairly confident, buying a 3XS rig, that I could do whatever I wanted with it, and the lifespan wouldn't be impacted to a point that I would be negatively affected.

Obviously you've still got to take care of it - if it gets clogged up with dust, then anything can happen, but that's the case whether it's overclocked or at stock. There's no carte blanche "do what you like, it will always be fine", but as I said previously, I wouldn't be concerned about my PC's longevity buying an overclocked 3XS rig.

[Skaramush]

well i trust scan to do it right its just i was worried whether i have to do anything special on my own like monitor temperature or something other than normal pc maintenance.

[jim]

No, that's why you pay Scan to do it for you - they'll take care of the testing, and make sure that it's at a safe temperature.

As I said, dust can cause issues, so you should dust regularly and/or keep an eye on temperatures, but it's not much different to a normal PC in that regard. You certainly don't need to start monitoring temperatures on day 1 to make sure you can play Crysis, if that's what you're asking