overclocking and you

[tixhal]

with this poll i want to check out how many of you are overclocking, and how successful you were/are with it.

i have a long history of overclocking stuff, the only time i failed horribly was with an amd 5400+ dualcore which completely fried. i was lucky enough to still get it replaced even if the warranty was officially void .

my first attempts were with a pentium3 933mhz which ran smoothly at 980mhz. the same system had a geforce 4 mx 4000 with passive cooler that ran smoothly at 315mhz core clock (default 275mhz). the performance gain was ok, not breathtaking, but at least it was stable.

the most successful oc i did was a sempron 3100+ (1,8ghz) which i was able to run at incredible 2,25ghz (+25% ). that was the first overclocking attempt that was really noticeable (especially while playing battlefield 2 and tes: oblivion).

i kind of had bad bad luck with my phenom2 x4 940 be, i had to slightly raise the voltage for 3,4ghz. i used too much thermal grease and had to install the cpu cooler fan facing the wrong way because my ram was too big so i didn't dare to oc any further. **** happens. it still served me well for almost 3 years.

atm i run my i5 3450 @ 3,9ghz max turbo (default 3,5ghz). i could go beyond 4ghz but i don't want to raise the busclock (yet). i could have bought a k model, but i wanted a cheap upgrade and the ivy bridge cpu's seem to struggle at frequencies beyond 4,5ghz anyway (they tend to get really hot, especially compared to sandy bridge cpu's).

i always was hesitant with overclocking graphics cards, but my asus hd6870 direct cu seems to have good potential. i'm slowly raising the core speed, playing a lot and checking the temps. atm it's running @965mhz (default 925 mhz) the maximum temperature is the same as with the default clock speed(86°C), but the fan is spinning faster (still quiet compared to other graphics cards i had before.) if i'm lucky i can get to 980mhz without raising the voltage, which i always try to avoid .

if you are/have been overclocking, feel free to share your experiences, and if you don't, maybe this thread can inspire you to get the best performance out of your investment.

disclaimer: if you are interested in overclocking i strongly recommend to check out some hardware forums and see what other people did to reach certain speeds. the quality of your hardware may vary, so don't expect the same results! raise clock speeds in small steps, check temperatures and stability, when you reach a critical point revert to settings that were stable. there definitely are risks, but in my experience overclocking is well worth the effort, and it is interesting and exciting to experiment with (if you are a nerd like me ).

[Nezzer]

Nope, I've actually downclocked my GPU because of the nvlddmkm.sys issue.

[PermenentMarker]

I usually go for minor overclocks.
Here is a list of all my chips and if I overclocked.


K6-233, no overclock
Celeron 300 @ 450mhz, Great success
celeron 850 @ 1130mhz, the chip died after 1 year.
Pentium3 1000Mhz, no overclock
AthlonXP 2400+
AthlonXP 3000+ no overclocks.
Athlon X2 3800 939pin (2.0Ghz), slight fsb overclock
Athlon X2 5200 AM2 2.7ghz, no overclock
Phenom9950 2.6Ghz to 2.73Ghz minor fsb overclock
Phenom II 965, 3.4ghz @ 3.6Ghz. (not stable past that

Currently,
Phenom II 960T Quad 3.0Ghz with 2 disabled cores.
Unlocked both cores, moved it to 3.8Ghz. TDP @ 180Watt.
It ran stable at first but at some point, after 2 hours of RO2, computer BSOD'ed and refused to reboot.
Computer ran after unseating cpu, but suffered stability issues for 3 months, issues rebooting. For most of it, it ran stable at 3.6Ghz Quad.
Only recently It stopped rebooting entirely and I tested all parts and saw that my motherboard was toast. That's on RMA now.

Now I am on my spare pc, an E8400... waiting for my motherboard to come back from RMA.



GPU's for all I can remember.

Previous gpu's aren't worth listing.
Geforce2 MX200 overclocked 25%, it died after 6 monts.
Geforece4TI4200 no overclock
Radeon 1650 no overclock
Geforce 8800GTS320, no overclock
Geforce GT260, no overclock
2x Radeon 5850's, Downclocked ram to minimum, overclocked GPU from 725 to 950mhz. (Bitcoin farming) 1 GPU burned. RMAed.


I find it fun, but haven't had best of luck or fallen on great overclockers.

For example a buddy of mine has an I7-930 2.8 @ 4.0Ghz and now has a sandy bridge version at 4.2.

[Zennousha]

After my warranties are usually out and the hardware is starting to show signs of age, I drop a bit of an overclock to extend some life.

GPUs are overclocked to 750, and I plan on buying a HSF for my i7 920 so I can crank it from 2.67 to at least 3.8.

Spending 30-60 bucks on an HSF is better than upgrading to a more recent CPU for several hundred dollars.

[LightsabeR]

Not really into hardcore OC'ing, but I do usually check how far I can take my CPU after I install it.

Can't recall before that, but my previous E8400 was running at 3.5GHz and my current i7 920 is running at 3.5GHz as well. Both with stock fans, tho I did use Arctic Cooling MX-4 instead of the default compound for my i7.

I haven't OC'd my GPU's, but I think I might take my friends recommendation and buy a HD7850 and OC it. He said he had a lot of success with it, can't recall the exact numbers, but I remember being impressed when he told me.

[Shadrach]

Nope, never saw the benefit from OC and gaing a few mhz, to outweigh the potential for unstability and loss of warranty. And it requires too much specialist knowledge about stuff I can't really be arsed to learn

I don't upgrade the PC very often, maybe every 3-4 years. My last build is from 08, but I've since replaced my gtx280 with a gtx580 (on warranty), which gets me possibly into next year. When I upgrade I get the lates and greatest anyway so usually no need to OC.

[=GG= Mr Moe]

I have my cpu overclocked. Its an older Q6600 2.4 GHz boosted to 3.2 GHz. I could never really get it higher than that and have it be stable. I have to keep it cool with an Antec Kuhler H20 620 so the temps stay reasonable.
* That reminds me, I want to tweak my voltage down one notch

I have overclocked my GPUs in the past. I had some 8800GTs but I was only able bump them up a little because the voltage was locked.

I could bump up my GTX560 Ti, but since I mostly play ROHOS, I'm limited by my cpu so I don't bother.

[tixhal]

i should have made a "i'm more into undervolting/downclocking" option in the poll. the result so far doesn't surprise me, i kind of expected a 50-50 distribution .
imo overclocking is like getting a discount on better hardware, sometimes it's very easy to achieve good results, sometimes it's not worth the effort. it depends on the quality of the chip.

Originally Posted by PermenentMarker

Celeron 300 @ 450mhz, Great success

whoa! that's an epic oc!

Originally Posted by PermenentMarker

...(Bitcoin farming)...

i've read some articles about it a while ago, it is definitely an interesting concept. is it worthwhile decrypting blocks on a single pc? and what to do with the earned bitcoins? buy groceries?
you seem to have the same enthusiasm for overclocking as me
once i started doing it, i always checked if my new hardware was able "to upgrade itself" , but i never bought parts just because they could be oc'd well.

Originally Posted by Zennousha

...
Spending 30-60 bucks on an HSF is better than upgrading to a more recent CPU for several hundred dollars.

exactly. the stock coolers of cpu's are often fast spinning, noisy monsters that have to work way too hard to keep the temps down. a good cooler is money well spent, even if you don't oc.

Originally Posted by LightsabeR

I haven't OC'd my GPU's, but I think I might take my friends recommendation and buy a HD7850 and OC it. He said he had a lot of success with it, can't recall the exact numbers, but I remember being impressed when he told me.

i too have heard good things about the 7850 and it's oc-potential. definitely worth a shot.

Originally Posted by Shadrach

Nope, never saw the benefit from OC and gaing a few mhz, to outweigh the potential for unstability and loss of warranty. And it requires too much specialist knowledge about stuff I can't really be arsed to learn

I don't upgrade the PC very often, maybe every 3-4 years. My last build is from 08, but I've since replaced my gtx280 with a gtx580 (on warranty), which gets me possibly into next year. When I upgrade I get the lates and greatest anyway so usually no need to OC.

especially if you only upgrade your pc every leap year, overclocking can have great benefits. "a few mhz" in some cases mean up to 1,5ghz (i5 2500k). but i can understand trying to run a pc as long as possible without degrading the life expectancy.

Originally Posted by =GG= Mr Moe

I have my cpu overclocked. Its an older Q6600 2.4 GHz boosted to 3.2 GHz. I could never really get it higher than that and have it be stable. I have to keep it cool with an Antec Kuhler H20 620 so the temps stay reasonable.
* That reminds me, I want to tweak my voltage down one notch

"a few mhz"= 800 in that case. definitely a nice performance boost!

[Rak]

I overclocked my GPU before(A GeForce 4 Ti 4200, what a great card it was) when simply upgrading was not an option, but since then I never cared to overclock. I don't see much gain in it. Hardware doesn't advance at light speeds now,a mediocre system bought in 2008-9 is perfectly capable of running modern games at modest settings.

[=GG= Mr Moe]

Originally Posted by =GG= Mr Moe

I have my cpu overclocked. Its an older Q6600 2.4 GHz boosted to 3.2 GHz. I could never really get it higher than that and have it be stable. I have to keep it cool with an Antec Kuhler H20 620 so the temps stay reasonable.
* That reminds me, I want to tweak my voltage down one notch

I have overclocked my GPUs in the past. I had some 8800GTs but I was only able bump them up a little because the voltage was locked.

I could bump up my GTX560 Ti, but since I mostly play ROHOS, I'm limited by my cpu so I don't bother.

I actually remembered I had lowered it a few weeks back and I'm wondering if that is the reason I have had the computer restart a few times since then. I nudged it back up a little higher.

[PermenentMarker]

Originally Posted by tixhal

whoa! that's an epic oc!


i've read some articles about it a while ago, it is definitely an interesting concept. is it worthwhile decrypting blocks on a single pc? and what to do with the earned bitcoins? buy groceries?
you seem to have the same enthusiasm for overclocking as me
once i started doing it, i always checked if my new hardware was able "to upgrade itself" , but i never bought parts just because they could be oc'd well.

Regarding the celeron 300 to 450, back in the day it was a very common overclock.

There were 2 different P2 Celeron chips, one with no l2 cash, the other with 128k of l2 cash.
The one without any l2 cash almost always went up to 450, just moving up the bus from 66mhz to 100

The one with 128k would also work, but not all the time...


As for the bitcoins, my buddy brainwashed me into trying it out. If you do it from home, it's not worth it due to the electricity cost of running 24/7 a computer with multiple high end GPU's...
I basically bought all the parts including 2x 5850's (bitcoins require cards with highest amount of shader cores) And I ran the PC from my work office as they don't pay electricity.

When I started, the bitcoins were worth 13$ each. within less than 2 months I famed about 30 bitcoins, but by that time the economy crashed to 2$ making it a huge waste of money. So I took all the better parts and upgraded my computer, sold off my old parts.

You can register to a site such as virtex (canadian bitcoin exchange) and sell them off for cash via paypal...

I am still sitting on my 30 pointless bitcoins, they are in my "virtual wallet" in an image of my farming computer... hopefully I didn't lose it.
Coins are now back up to 5$ and stable. I am waiting to see if it will get back up to 10+ so I can sell them off.

[tixhal]

Originally Posted by PermenentMarker

Regarding the celeron 300 to 450, back in the day it was a very common overclock.

okay i thought you worked some sort of miracle there

Originally Posted by PermenentMarker

As for the bitcoins, my buddy brainwashed me into trying it out. If you do it from home, it's not worth it due to the electricity cost of running 24/7 a computer with multiple high end GPU's...

i expected something like this, otherwise everybody would do it. too bad i don't have access to a big pool of pc's and free power still not a bad way to earn some cash on the side, if you can keep the bitcoins above the electric bill.

[Colt .45 killer]

Hardware wise I only got into OC'ing when I got my q6600. Stock 2.4, bought a huge cooler and a fan that they pulled off a Jet. Oc'd up to 3.6 easily and still below voltage / temp limis by a wide margin, backed it down to 3.4 because at that point the voltage was increased only some 10% off stock.

Video card wise, just getting into that now, got a 7870 double D from XFX. These things OC like beasts in all of my reading. Stock is 1000gpu / 1200ram.
That increases to 1200 / 1300 without touching voltage.

[PermenentMarker]

I rooted and install android 4.0 on my Acer Liquid E phone.

Within the new rom, I am able to overclock the cpu of my phone.
It's now from 768mhz to 816 (I think)
I can put it up to 1000 but.... I don't feel like burning out my phone just yet...

[tixhal]

Originally Posted by Colt .45 killer

Video card wise, just getting into that now, got a 7870 double D from XFX. These things OC like beasts in all of my reading. Stock is 1000gpu / 1200ram.
That increases to 1200 / 1300 without touching voltage.

i'm not sure, but increasing the memory speed of a graphics card brings rather negligible performance increases compared to core clock oc's. imo it's too risky (depending on the quality of the ram and how well it is cooled). run a benchmark and prove me wrong if you like. +200 core clock definitely squeezes out some more fps though.

Originally Posted by PermenentMarker

I rooted and install android 4.0 on my Acer Liquid E phone.

Within the new rom, I am able to overclock the cpu of my phone.
It's now from 768mhz to 816 (I think)
I can put it up to 1000 but.... I don't feel like burning out my phone just yet...

i am speechless i don't own a smartphone, but i would never think of oc'ing one (maybe if it's really slow).

OVERCLOCK ALL THE THINGS!

[YoYoBatty]

Yes all of it! i5-2500k from 3.3ghz to 4.4ghz, dual 6850's full clocks, ram highest stable 1600mhz

[MrLebanon]

my mobo (Asus sabertooth 990fx) has a nice "auto-overclock" option for unlocked processors (in my case - phenom ii x6 1100t)

it is not "optimal" but gives noobies like me a good starting value for tinkering. Auto OC gets me stable at 3.8 ghz (3.3 stock). A bit of tweaking and I'm at 4

The worst that happens when I push a little too hard is BSODs

[User Name]

My best recent overclocks were were an AMD PII 555 x2 3.2 unlocked an overclocked to an X4 @ 3.8Ghz. The other is my most recent which is an AMD PII 960T x4 3Ghz either overclocked to 4GHz or unlocked to a six core @ 3.5Ghz. Before that I ran (and still have) a Q6600 OC'd to 3Ghz. I had that one for a few years before I bought the 555.

[[Mad_Murdock]]

I'm running a stable 4.5GHz on my 2700k right now. It's the first serious overclock I've done. I did a mild one on my old Q9550, but that was just from 2.83 to about 3.1.

The sabertooth is a great board, I've never used it (I've built all my gaming PCs on Maximus boards), but I've heard very good things. I like the auto overclock, but yeah if you want to squeeze all the power you can you're going to have to go manual. I'm planning on pushing this thing to 5 GHz after I find a stable job, so I can replace the chip if anything happens.

Speaking of which, also agreed with whoever said stock coolers are useless. Haven't run one of those on my last 3 builds I think, I have a Noctua ND-H14 on mine, and all i can say is its huge and monstrously ugly, but it works miracles, I have yet to see over 55C on full load.

[tixhal]

Originally Posted by [Mad_Murdock]

Speaking of which, also agreed with whoever said stock coolers are useless. Haven't run one of those on my last 3 builds I think, I have a Noctua ND-H14 on mine, and all i can say is its huge and monstrously ugly, but it works miracles, I have yet to see over 55C on full load.

^^ that thing looks evil
i have a scythe ninja 3

Spoiler!

, it's pretty cheap, weighs ~1kg, barely fits into my case and has manual fan control which i run at the lowest value all the time (300rpm iirc). max temps ~55°C while gaming. increasing the fan speed could lower the value a lot, but i like to only be able to hear the song of the graphics card and the soothing crackle of the raid .
before that i had the thermaltake ruby orb

Spoiler!

, which worked well with the cpu's of that era.