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Intro to OverclockingOct 02 '00 Write an essay on this topic.This is the first part of a series of articles written to help the above-average computer nerd or anyone brave enough to try, in overclocking their PC. Overclocking is not in and of itself difficult, but there are several considerations. Overclocking can damage components, and I take no responsibility whatsoever for any possible damage may be caused by listening to me. If I jumped off a bridge.....? Heheheh This isn't designed to be an end-all be-all guide, but hopefully I will point you in the right direction as to what works and what doesn't as well as what realistic expectations you should have when pushing your PC to the max. I'll try to keep it as non-technical as possible to keep things simple. First things first. Lets get some definitions out of the way. Overclocking as defined by me, is getting more performance out of your component(s) than they were rated to deliver as sold. Through upclocking the frequency of your CPU through higher FSB speeds or upping the core frequency of your video card. It's all about performance gains. Added bonus, and the attraction for me is the fact that you can buy a $150 CPU and make it perform very closely to that of a $700+ processor. This either allows you to spend the difference on a better vid card and more memory, or just not spend as much at the onset and still be able to run with those at the LAN parties that have $4000+ invested in their super-duper-FalconNW/Area51/Sir-Spend-Alot off the shelf PCs. So, if your goal is to get "free" performance gains, read on. But realize that these performance gains are not free. You have to work at it. You have to use handpicked *quality* components. You have to tweak and tune just about every setting from BIOS to Windows. You might actually spend more for the components of the system. Raw Mhz is only one facet of performance. Again, and I can't stress this enough, if you use marginal components, you will only be marginally successful. Your system is only as good as it's weakest link. It's just not realistic to expect to get your Gateway, Packard Bell, NEC, Compaq, IBM, eMachine (especially eMachine) or other off the shelf system to anything higher than say 10% above rated system spec. You will most likely void the warranty on these systems as well, and let's face it, that's about the only thing these systems have going for them. Now that that is out of the way, Lets move on to what you'll need to successfully overclock. I'm going to assume that this is a new system, but recommendations could be applied when thinking about upgrades as well. There are 5 major components to a PC; the CPU, Motherboard, RAM, vidcard and hard drive. There are other components, but those 5 above all others determine ultimately how fast the PC will go. The cooling system would be the 6th item on that list in an overclocked PC--I'll explain why later in the series. Part 2 will talk about CPU selection.  |
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