stevey

iTrader: (2)

as title what is overclocking and what will it improve and how do i do it
cheers steve

Daz34

Google answer

How hard was that?

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Over clocking in a nutshell= ramping up the clockcycle on a system to more than what you have the clock speed to at the moment. E.g CPU=2GHZ you may in increments overlcock this to >2.1GHZ
It all depends on what system you're overclocking, and if the overclocking you do will keep the system stable.

Can you elaborate on the system you have. Example: Motherboard type, CPU manufacturer, PC brand.

john banks

The overclocking bargain seems to be the Dual Core Intel Pentium E2140 which some are getting from 1.6 to 3.2GHz (does Super-Pi 1M in 20s and costs c.£40). You can even buy a motherboard and CPU combo (needs a heatsink/fan) that has it overclocked to 2.66GHz for £85. I was thinking of putting together a cheap gamer with £28 for 2GB of RAM, a 9600GT for £111 (can also be overclocked), PSU and using my old case, drives, monitor, keyboard, mouse. There are lots of guides on the web for overclocking various CPUs, google is again your friend. Some vendors like overclockers UK sell kits designed to be overclocked with instructions.

Looking at posher processors, the new 45nm E8400 seems to overclock to around 4GHz, but it costs three times as much as the cheapo I mentioned above and ends up about 30-40% faster. Depends on your needs. There is always something new out in a few months that makes spending a lot a bit pointless IMHO.

B0DSKI

iTrader: (17)

look on overclockers.com

jpor

iTrader: (1)

All well and good, but to achieve the speeds you're talking about requires some serious cooling kit, I.e an uprated heatsink and fan or even a recommened water cooling kit. Or you're CPU won't function correctly.
Check out: The Tale Of Wolfdale: Power Requirements And Overclocking Analyzed : Overclocking Intel's Wolfdale E8000

Shark Man

It's all down to how serious you want to take it.

One can spend a fortune on top spec motherboards, RAM designed for the job, superduper heatsinks, and fancy system case. Things is, one can get to a point in costs where they end up spending so much extra they could have just bought a better system in the first place.

Ok one can get some of the older dual cores to run at impressive clock rates, but one can get carried away on the costs of the parts needed to make it run faster whilst staying cool and stable.

The other way is to overclock to take advanatge of what you already have; i.e by not buying fancy high voltage RAM, Big heatsinks, loads of fans, tarty gamer case etc.

My current PC is a example - Corsair Value RAM, no thrills (but overclockable) motherboard (P5LD2), The standard Intel CPU heatsink/fan and a case with half decent (logical) airflow. Its overclocked by about 32% and perfectly stable without any need for any "modded" components (except a fan speed controller to keep the case fans quiet, as unknown to me before I bought it, the P5LD2 board didn't have any fan speed control). So, cost to overclock: £0.

john_s

iTrader: (1)

That's the way I go about it.

I've got a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo running fine at 2.8GHz with "ordinary" RAM (might be Corsair Value Select, I can't remember) and the standard Intel heatsink and fan.

It BSOD's after a few minutes running at 2.9GHz and the message suggests it's the RAM that's falling over.

Haven't done anything technical with the overclocking (this time... I used to though), I just kept stepping up the bus speed every now and then until it fell over, then I wound it back a bit.