"Cooling the intake charge to your engine to create more HP will not kill your engine." --noparity
You''re replying to THAT??? It was an analogy...
No, cooling the intake to your engine may not cause any damage at all to your engine, but leaking dry ice into it to accomplish this surely will. It freezes the top of your engine, while all the action is going on in the bottom. Pretty soon, you''ll have to buy a whole new engine, which everyone knows doesn''t come cheap.
No more offtopics-- this thread is about overclocking your computer, not car engines and dry ice. I used that as an analogy simply to say that, most of the time (though not all), striving to squeeze out as much speed and power of something eventually breaks it down.
Is overclocking safe?
Overclocking can often be done safely, but its becoming of limited use these days. The range of prices between low and high end processors is pretty slim right now. Sure, the VERY newest and best processor (1.7ghz, or whatever this weeks flavor is) are often marked up a ridiculous amount, but often you will pay like $20 or so to get a CPU that is 10-20% faster than the next lowest one. The economics these days are such that its usually cheaper to buy the next-highested-rated processor than to buy the equipment you need to overclock safely.
Most OCers spend a fortune on crazy cooling systems, top of the line motherboards with many OC-friendly features, etc, etc, when they could have just bought a CPU at the speed they are overclocking to for a much cheaper price, saved themselves the hassle of avoiding the OC-unfriendly features CPU makers are using these days, etc. Mostly I think they just like to ''stick it to the man'' more than get more value for their money. I guess if you are constantly upgrading CPUs you can make use of the OC hardware each time, so it comes close to evening out, but all in all I still think it doesnt make nearly as much sense as it used to.
Most OCers spend a fortune on crazy cooling systems, top of the line motherboards with many OC-friendly features, etc, etc, when they could have just bought a CPU at the speed they are overclocking to for a much cheaper price, saved themselves the hassle of avoiding the OC-unfriendly features CPU makers are using these days, etc. Mostly I think they just like to ''stick it to the man'' more than get more value for their money. I guess if you are constantly upgrading CPUs you can make use of the OC hardware each time, so it comes close to evening out, but all in all I still think it doesnt make nearly as much sense as it used to.
Someone said that raising the multiplier is safer than raising the fsb... yes it is. very much so. however there is one problem -- you can''t always change the multiplier.
I know it is especially true on intel chips.
There is a multiplier lock on many chips now, that pervents changes in the multiplier. Some web sites show ways on how to get rid of it by covering a pin on the chip... but that''s a little far to go, since it may not be right.
Drakonite
[Insert Witty Signature Here]
I know it is especially true on intel chips.
There is a multiplier lock on many chips now, that pervents changes in the multiplier. Some web sites show ways on how to get rid of it by covering a pin on the chip... but that''s a little far to go, since it may not be right.
Drakonite
[Insert Witty Signature Here]
Drakonite is right about Intel locking their chips. I have a PIII and I tried raising the multiplier from 5.5 to 6, but after the change the computer wouldn't boot until I changed it back. What a pain in the butt.
Edited by - conundrum07 on August 9, 2001 10:38:14 PM
Edited by - conundrum07 on August 9, 2001 10:38:14 PM
A moderately widely known fact: Sometimes when you buy a chip ''rated'' at say 1 Ghz, you stand a decent chance of actually getting one that can safely go faster.
Intel and AMD don''t have manufacturing lines going all the time to produce the upteen million different speed ratings they sell. Because production costs are often so close, at some points in the year they are just lowering the multiplier/bus speed and shipping a fast processor in a slower processor''s box.
Anyways, if you''re going to overclock, make sure that your memory/AGP cards, etc can handle it. Memory does _not_ overlock well, so if you''re upping the bus speed to 133, make sure you have PC133 memory. Don''t worry about PCI/ISA cards - motherboards now have a separate bus for these (at least mine does)
Also, expect your PC not to last as long as it would otherwise. But if you''re only planning on keeping your Processor/Motherboard for 2-3 years, you probably won''t have any problems.
And don''t expect your warranty to cover _anything_ once you''ve overlocked.
Intel and AMD don''t have manufacturing lines going all the time to produce the upteen million different speed ratings they sell. Because production costs are often so close, at some points in the year they are just lowering the multiplier/bus speed and shipping a fast processor in a slower processor''s box.
Anyways, if you''re going to overclock, make sure that your memory/AGP cards, etc can handle it. Memory does _not_ overlock well, so if you''re upping the bus speed to 133, make sure you have PC133 memory. Don''t worry about PCI/ISA cards - motherboards now have a separate bus for these (at least mine does)
Also, expect your PC not to last as long as it would otherwise. But if you''re only planning on keeping your Processor/Motherboard for 2-3 years, you probably won''t have any problems.
And don''t expect your warranty to cover _anything_ once you''ve overlocked.
quote:Original post by CheeseGrater
Intel and AMD don''t have manufacturing lines going all the time to produce the upteen million different speed ratings they sell. Because production costs are often so close, at some points in the year they are just lowering the multiplier/bus speed and shipping a fast processor in a slower processor''s box.
Not entirely accurate: They have only ONE production line, but the products are "binned" according to the speed grade they can reach. Speed grade depends on the quality of the processor - cleaner processors go faster - but because there is a lot of variance on this that''s hard to control, they are just produced and then binned afterwards.
USUALLY, slower speed grade bins fill up faster than higher speed grade bins, but not all the time. AMD had this during the early production stages of the Athlon: they were producing Athlons that were consistently capable of reaching 800+ MHz, but they had more demand for the lower speed grades. So they just shipped the 800Mhz chips at 500Mhz - and these were perfect overclockers! (They weren''t locked back then either.)
However, you can kill your processor when overclocking - if you don''t have adequate cooling. I''ve heard horror stories of people trying to OC their AXIA Athlon ( you know what I mean if you''re into AMD stuff
), getting the copper shim in wrong, and frying the CPU in less time than it takes to notice that the PC isn''t booting up.I nearly fried my TBird 800 when I OCd it, but letting it cool down for a while allowed me to boot for long enough to turn the multiplier back down.
So: be careful, and if you notice it''s not booting, TURN THE PC OFF INSTANTLY!
People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.
quote:Original post by MadKeithV
I''ve heard horror stories of people trying to OC their AXIA Athlon ( you know what I mean if you''re into AMD stuff
People might not remember what you said, or what you did, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
Mad Keith the V.
Yeah, that''s been known to happen. I had a TBird (pre-AXIA), which worked nicely and even overclocked a little with poor cooling (950 @1050 with crappy no-name HSF). Unfornately, I hauled it over to a friends house for a LAN party, and somehow the HSF clips broke. From there, everything went downhill. Sure, it booted fine for 5 seconds, but afterword she died promptly. RIP little Athlon.
quote:Original post by MadKeithV
Not entirely accurate: They have only ONE production line, but the products are "binned" according to the speed grade they can reach. Speed grade depends on the quality of the processor - cleaner processors go faster - but because there is a lot of variance on this that''s hard to control, they are just produced and then binned afterwards.
USUALLY, slower speed grade bins fill up faster than higher speed grade bins, but not all the time. AMD had this during the early production stages of the Athlon: they were producing Athlons that were consistently capable of reaching 800+ MHz, but they had more demand for the lower speed grades. So they just shipped the 800Mhz chips at 500Mhz - and these were perfect overclockers! (They weren''t locked back then either.)
You are also not entirely accurate... When they first started the new line, the slower bins filled up faster, however they have gotten (too) good at making processors and it is said that nearly all of the processors they make go to the high quality bin. Some of the high quality chips are then locked at slower speeds to keep an abundance of chips in the lower end market.
Intel denies this, saying that it makes no sense, however it does actually make good business sense for them. If all chips were sold at the speed they are capable of, there would be a lack of lower end chips, causing the price of low end chips to rise to where they cost more than higher end chips (or atleast almost as much) and there would be an over abundance of high end chips, causing the price to drop substantially. Thus intel losing money.
This is the type of thing that has happened to ram -- they got good enough at making ram that there became too much of it, and the price plummeted. And if you don''t believe that high end chips can cost less than low end, take a look at ram-pc133 ram costs the same as pc100 in most brands.
Drakonite
[Insert Witty Signature Here]
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement