Who plays over-clocked?

[TitanKing]

Just a question of pure interest.

Who play games over-clocked, like who has his PC over-clocked permanently and gains performance while playing games? Also how long has your over-clocked machine been running.

This would be a productive exercise to gain performance without investing more in a higher end rig.

I am trying to find out if it is worth the money and time, does it damage your system on the long run?

Please state:
Existing CPU/FSB/Memory Clock Speeds -> Permanent Overclocked
Existing GPU/Memory/etc -> Permanent Overclocked

How much performance gain do you get from this?

[Razer]

I think you need to clarify the different bands, as in "High" vs. "Mid". Also whether a person is using air cooling or water cooling.

Here's my setup:

Existing CPU/FSB/Memory Clock Speeds -> Permanent Overclocked

CPU: E8200 (chosen because it can OC well and is cheaper than the E8400)
Overclock: 8 * 450FSB (3.6 GHz)
Voltage: Stock
Cooling: third-party (Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme; CM 120mm fan; Zalman paste)

Existing GPU/Memory/etc -> Permanent Overclocked

My GPU is factory overlclocked by about 10% but I won't take it further as the warranty is overseas, not local.

How much performance gain do you get from this?

I have not yet measured the performance gain from the stock 2.66GHz.

A very big factor is your choice of motherboard. For a budget buy, look no further than the DFI in my sig, or the Asus P5K.

I am trying to find out if it is worth the money and time, does it damage your system on the long run?

It's so easy to achieve with the right setup that there's no reason not to do it. With the right cooling, you control your temps so lifespan is not affected.

I would say that my E8200 + Thermalright cooling cost about R400.00 more than a standard E8400.

[Andy]

I run at 3.6GHz all day 24/7 on my E6850 with 1.35V.

System specs:

Intel E6850 @ 3.6GHz (450X8)
4GB Team Group DDR2 800 @ 960MHz
Coolermaster Hyper TX 2RR-CCH-L9U1-GP - Amazing cooler for R300
BIOSTAR TPower I45 LGA 775 Intel P45 Motherboard

When I play games (hardly) I usually push the FSB to 520 (X7) and run the memory at 1:1. Performance for some reason shoots up and the system gets a lot more responsive at these settings.

As for the VGA card, it's overclocked by 10% but I don't see too much of a gain here.

Is it worth it? Hell yes!
Does it damage components? Only if you don't watch your cooling and voltage. To give you an idea an average system could last 10 years while an overclocked system will give you around 8 years of service. Plan to keep your system for 10 years?

[Zizzy]

Hi Andy.

What you said is quite true, if you know what you are doing, it is totally worth it.. It get's up your performance with no damage and BONUS, it's fun overclocking! And also, almost no one uses there PC for up to 10 years, so OC is totally worth it! When selling it, you can also indicate the limits you have pushed your CPU to, so that people have an idea if they want to play around..

I think OC benefits all!

[ruach]

I run stock standard.

Never really got into overclocking... sad i know

[Pollynator]

I don't overclock, I leave the clocks to the experts as I have this morbid fear of breaking something... I'd rather be safe then sorry.

[Razer]

Geez, I had a very frustrating over-clocking weekend! The aim was not to go for records or even to bench but give a 24/7 boost to the system. The previous system was over-clocked by 56% for 16 months.

[snail]

i only overclock for benchmarking, but overclocking is a whole new ball game when u get started, and it is addictive. as long as you got the right tools to use (ie software) then you shouldnt really damage anything if you take it slowely and 1 step at a time. ive recently got into overclocking, and have got my e8400 up to 4GHz, but i will only go up to there as it runs stable on every test i run, my mobo is also nice as i can save differant bios settings, so i have 1 for stock, and 1 for benchmarking

[warr10r]

I don't overclock, I leave the clocks to the experts as I have this morbid fear of breaking something... I'd rather be safe then sorry.

Me too. Because I actually BURNT a 2 week old system on my first try . I was BLEAK and had settle for a hugely downgraded system because of my little experiment. It was years before I bought a system to surpass the one I destroyed.

I'm not touching my current baby AT ALL! No overclocky!

[Morte]

I am running my E6700 (stock: 2.66Ghz) overclocked to 3.6Ghz with a Tuniq Tower 120 ontop (fan almost turned off). And the performance increase is incredible.

I really do not see how you destroy hardware when you overclock, because all you need to do is do proper temperature testing and monitoring.

If something breaks when you do your basic overclocking it is: 1. Mere chance and had nothing to do with you overclocking. ( often the faults are just exposed earlier) and nobody will be able to determine if it was due to overclocking or not.
or 2. You were stupid and didn't do proper temp monitoring and testing or did something like set your Volts to a million.