Episode 47 - Overclock your PC [Discussion]

[tylerhowarth]

Back in the day, only the foolhardy overclocked a PC. Today? It's practically expected for home builders. We walk you thru the basics of getting free performance from your processor.

Watch and Download the Episode here! (http://revision3.com/systm/overclock/)

[dosbomber]

"We're going to bring that [CPU Multiplier] up to 11, because it's one louder"...

hahaha nice Spinal Tap reference.. :)

Sad to hear about Dave leaving, aside from being stuck in the studio running tens of thousands of miles of wires, he seemed to have a lot of great ideas for projects for the show.

[will_stutler]

thats cool
i always thought over clocking was harder than that

i wounder if you could do it on a laptop

[m3wse]

one word: cooling...

[shinigami052]

There's a pretty cool and good group of overclockers over at:

http://www.teampalit.com/forumdisplay.php?f=81

[computoman]

Some people will underclock a machine so it will run cooler and use less juice. Some cpu's have a special section in them to record if the cpu has been overclocked. That way if there is a warranty issue the overclocker will have have to come clean. Good show by the way.

We want to see a pic of the little one!

[atris316]

Say it ant so.. Dave gone, this saddens me. Let me be the first to say good show. Systm wouldn't be the show it is today without you (or Rev3 for that matter). So good luck, i wish you well at your new venture. Hope you come back and guest on a few shows.

[smeerkaas]

Overclocking is fun. I've been doing it for 15 years or so. Getting nostalgic is great 'n all, but i'm sure glad I don't have to solder crystals anymore to get more oomph. These days it is really too easy. Just dial in a value and see if it sticks.

My current machine runs almost 40% over stock, with air cooling and no noise. Default voltages even for the CPU and motherboard. All I had to do was set my memory to 2.1 volt (default 1.8). And even that is the rated voltage for those sticks.

C2D E6600 2,4GHz @ 3,3GHz. Free speed. It's wonderful.
And because the voltages are kept stock, I'm not too worried about electromigration.

I'm sure I could get more out of it, but my main concern is quiet and cool operation. DDR2 Memory at 730MHz 3-3-3-9-12. A year and a half old machine, and it's kicking *ss even when compared to brand new stock machines. In both pure speed, and bandwith. :)

[bani-banan]

Overclocking is fawking awesome!
Most fun I've had is overclocking my computah.

Back in the day, I used to overclock my integrated graphics card... = epic failure!

Saddens me that randolph is leaving =/

[tilman]

Overclocking is useless. It is fun if you have time for it.
And it _can_ be very rewarding. But just finding this out and at some point of course, finding out you did it too much wastes so much time you could better invest in fun software stuff.

Did i tell you that i find PC hardware boring and dumb? *g*

I will buy the first pc without hardware if there ever is one. ;)

When i was a kid, i liked all this stupid bigger fan more volts and Hz stuff. But i liked some other strange things as a kid...

[criddopher]

great segment. patrick rules hardcore!

[hitnruntony]

Like alot of people, I'm sad to see Dave go. He showed us a lot of cool things and I would've loved to see what more he could've done with the Versa Lazer. Also Like a lot of people, I don't think Rev3 would be what it is today without Dave.

You will be missed man.

[sam_]

Some cpu's have a special section in them to record if the cpu has been overclocked. That way if there is a warranty issue the overclocker will have have to come clean.

sorry but i dont believe thats true. It would take too much time and money to develope a chip to find out if a cpu had been OCed. The most they can do is look for burn marks on the IHS or somthing.

on a lighter note.. I love OCing, iv only been doing it for a few years but already i have got a PentiumD 945 from 3.4Ghz to 5.2Ghz. Linky (http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=340717)
And a Celeron 420 from 1.6Ghz to 3.3Ghz... yes.. thats a 106% overclock :D:D

[scienceking]

Overclocking is useless. It is fun if you have time for it.

This is kind of absurd. I remember when my primary linux workstation ran a mid-grade single core opteron. Those things overclocked like hell, my system was faster than any stock processor system on the market at the time and I didn't even have to raise the voltage on the thing. People were getting absurd overclocks of up to 800 MHz with stock coolers.
Sometimes its just stupid not to overclock, depending on what's on the market. And I love Macs, the system I'm on right now and am at 90% of the time is one, but "PC Hardware" always has a place. For example, there are no macintosh or professionally manufactured equivalents for a middle-end RAID server, small clusters for rendering or math stuff, etc etc. I usually ssh into a Linux PC to to simple tasks like run fixed LAN/security scans or to just dump files on via SCP for exchanges. It would frankly be dumb to throw down several times the price for something you don't need or something that would work even worse for specialized applications.
Just because you have a fancy power screwdriver doesn't mean the manual screwdrivers or a power drill for driving don't come in handy sometimes too.

[sam_]

This is kind of absurd. I remember when my primary linux workstation ran a mid-grade single core opteron. Those things overclocked like hell, my system was faster than any stock processor system on the market at the time and I didn't even have to raise the voltage on the thing. People were getting absurd overclocks of up to 800 MHz with stock coolers.
Sometimes its just stupid not to overclock, depending on what's on the market. And I love Macs, the system I'm on right now and am at 90% of the time is one, but "PC Hardware" always has a place. For example, there are no macintosh or professionally manufactured equivalents for a middle-end RAID server, small clusters for rendering or math stuff, etc etc. I usually ssh into a Linux PC to to simple tasks like run fixed LAN/security scans or to just dump files on via SCP for exchanges. It would frankly be dumb to throw down several times the price for something you don't need or something that would work even worse for specialized applications.
Just because you have a fancy power screwdriver doesn't mean the manual screwdrivers or a power drill for driving don't come in handy sometimes too.

+1 on that.... i dont see how anyone can say its pointless, its free performance.

and with C2D and C2Qs OCing so well at the moment its easy as hell.

[silly_elf]

I have really enjoyed watching systm and it will not be the same with out mr. randolf. Best of luck!

I OC'd my Athlon 64 4200+ from it's stock clock speed of 2.21 GHz to 2.71 GHz. I'm using the stock AMD heatsink & fan, but I added an 80MM fan to the case to help with cooling and air flow (my first case mod!). I did have to increase the voltage to the CPU and RAM. Once all of the voltage issues were worked out my PC has been rock steady.

The biggest improvement I've seen from my OC is in encoding video files. What used to take 15 minutes now takes me 10. I love the added performance the OC has given me, and I have to admit I feel pretty cool about having done it. I plan on doing more overclocking with my next system build.

Maybe on a future episode of systm they could show how to install a water cooling sytem in a PC (show hint).

Anybody else notice that DL.TV did a 3 part segment on OC'ing with Lloyd Case recently? coincidence....hmmmmm

[patrick-revision3-com]

I will buy the first pc without hardware if there ever is one. ;)

I dunno Tilman, will it be a Google Cloud PC or a MS Live Mesh PC? heh...

[patrick-revision3-com]

Anybody else notice that DL.TV did a 3 part segment on OC'ing with Lloyd Case recently? coincidence....hmmmmm

Actually, it is. I had no idea Loyd did an overclocking show on DL.TV. Frankly, I would have loved having him w/ Dave and I doing this, 'cause Loyd's the best hardware guy I've ever met. Here are links to his viddies:

Overclocking your PC with Loyd Case Part 1 (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2280739,00.asp)

Overclocking your PC with Loyd Case Part 2 (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2282532,00.asp)