Overclocking!

[Jleagle]

Can someone please explain to me how overclocking works and how you do it. Thanks.

[Nox]

Its a way of running your cpu (or ram or gfx card) at above stock speeds.

Now depending on what part you want to overclock, you have different instructions, and some parts will overclock much higher than others. Some are simply not worth it...

If you are talking about your cpu, a fair amount will also depend on your motherboard. Some companies such as Intel, compaq, HP etc will not put the overclocking options in the BIOS, where others, such as DFI will put way more than any normal overclocker would need.

Nox

[teknokid]

it also means pumping those volts.

[Tharpe]

its very hard to do, and quite risky. i'm still reading on how to do it properly. you basically fiddle around with things on your mobo, there is options for it in your Bios (possibly) but you really should read up a huge amount on it before you start.
it basically makes different bits of your PC work faster.

CPU, GPU etc...

but can cause instability and also....BOOM

[mattk]

Overclocking = to push an item of hardware or bus beyond its recommended settings.

the more you overclock something the more voltage you need to keep the system stable, and of course more voltage means more heat.

ill give an example of overclocking the cpu. There are 2 ways of doing this. changing the multiplier (not recommended) or increasing the FSB (front side bus). <-- the best safest and most reliable way fo overclocking.

for example:
if you think of a soundwave and a line at the top and the bottom that the soundwave exceeds. (stable system). as you start pushing the cpu more you start to strech out the soundwave pulling it down below the stable markers so you need to put more voltage in to boost the wave back up past the stable mark.

how far can you push it?

this all depends on your hardware setup. components can vary on how much they can overclock. so there are no sure settings that anyone can give you.

some motherboards will overclock the ram when clocking the cpu fsb. sometimes this can cause issues. but you can always change your ram speed down to the lower level so that it copes with the overclock better.

things i can recommnd are:

an elite heatsink! <-- to reduce the heat! water cooling is the best but air cooling should be suitable upto a certain point.
case fans <-- to get that heat out of your case.
a very stable PSU <-- as with all PSU's generally the more expensive/heavier the better. although a middle range one is good enough to get you started.

[Nox]

an elite heatsink! <-- to reduce the heat! water cooling is the best but air cooling should be suitable upto a certain point.

its the best as long as you don't take phase change and cascades into consideration...

and just pure ln, but ln isn't commonly used as you need to keep topping it up :D

Nox

[Jleagle]

OK thanks.

I am asking because i was recommend this mobo, http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?MSI-P35N2F and got told it would be a good mobo to over clock. Does overclocking the mobo affect the memory and gpu etc or can you chose which one you want to speed up?

[mattk]

You overclock the CPU and RAM in the BIOS.
i dont suggest overclocking the Busses on the mainboard as this can be extremely volatile.
overclocking your graphics card is normally windows based where you would have a utility to acess the GFX cards BIOS settings.

for example: Nvidia Ntune.

[djgandy]

I sense a general fear of overclocking in this thread. These days it's a piece of cake. It is quite safe to overclock core2 cpus by 20%, mainly because they can take that increase without any extra voltage.

If you are worried just try with some light modification, 5% or so and see how it goes. Then if you are satisfied everything is running fine and cool try a bit more. rinse repeat etc.

[Tharpe]

A good easy to read tutorial on overclocking:

http://www.basichardware.com/how_to_overclock.html

very simplistic, though it doesnt tell you the dangers :?
though if you dont have a bigger then 350watt power supply then dont bother overclocking lol you will blow just abotu everything.

my GPU needs 350watt and i have an old 300watt power supply in which isnt good! so i just leave it alone lol. will bother to buy a cheap new one.

actually can someone tell me a good cheap power supply with a 24 pin mobo cable? (or whatever you call it)

[fynn]

well i just picked up the novatech 600 watt psu for 23 quid, and it works great, plus as a bonus, when i got it home and opened the box, i found it was a 700 watt psu, and it has the 24 pin mobo conecter, so ideal if you after a cheap psu untill you decide to get a more powerfull one.

[Tharpe]

thanks :)

il have a look at it then
really appreciate it!