Overclocking

grant555

Are there any good programs that allow for overclocking via Windows?

DrMark

See:

http://overclockers.com/

Overclocking is hardware/bios based not software.

Emieno

Good programs are not free...

Emieno

hah, agree

grant555

Thanks for the reply, but I don't mind paying for the software if it could do the job with less hassle. I think I will just google it and read enough until I feel comfortable to tackle the bios. Thanks again.

Anttech

try telling that to GNU

saltydog

My understanding of overclocking is that it's not a good idea: you're pushing the system beyond the manufacturer's recommened operating range. Does this not compromise the robustness of your application?

Townsend

It depends on a lot of factors....the manufacture is not always honest about the product he is selling you. For example, ATI will sell the same GPU chip in two or three different video cards. The most expensive card having all the features turned on and then they are turned off as you go down the line. However, the features are still there....What does that mean for you? It depends but for sure you will be able to do some healthy overclocking without compromising your system.

Now....I don't know what the probability distribution would look like for a given batch of silicon but I imagine there is enough variance to allow for certain chips to overclock well beyond what the manufacture has set for the mean of the sample.

Besides that, you can overclock the hell out of chips and maintain a very stable system. Of course the law of diminishing returns makes this a rather expensive process if you plan on making a serious difference.

One last thing...the average useful life of silicon makes worrying about an early death a complete waste of time. By the time your overclocked cpu is ready to die, it will cost about 10 bucks to replace it.

Regards

grant555

Well said indeed. There are many kernels of truth in this thread.

delton

This is definently true.. but if you have an nForce chipset on your mobo then you can use the program nTune. I find it works pretty good, although it can't unlock multipliers or do anything to serious. I think you can also use the program fanspeed to monitor and prehaps change? your system..

exequor

do people overclock laptops as much as desktops?

I guess that by overclocking a laptop it would probably affect your battery life as well.

russ_watters

Heat dissipation is a critical issue for laptops and it is unwise to overclock them. In fact, virtually all laptops self-underclock for the purpose of heat reduction and battery life.

russ_watters

Actually, that's a different issue. Turning on disabled features is not overclocking. I also would not call it dishonest. You are getting what you pay for - in fact, if you can re-enable those features, you're getting more.

Overclocking is simply a biproduct of the fact that the quality of electronics varies and components are made in batches. The rating on the chip reflects only the minimum conditions under which it is guaranteed to operate. A great deal of the time, those conditions can be exceeded safely, but it would take an enormous effort to test for it at the manufacturing plant and simply isn't practical.

Townsend

No, trust me, I know what I am taking about on this on.....take a look at the Radeon 9800 pro and the 9800 xt. In the later chips they both had the exact same gpu...what was the difference between the xt and the pro? the memory chips, pcb board and the bios that was flashed on the gpu. You could overclock the 9800 pro to the same levels as the stock xt or higher depending on your luck. But you could also flash the cpu to r350 core and turn on one more feature.

Then there was the ati 9500 pro gpu....which in some cases was the same as the 9700 pro gpu with certain buses disabled....you could do a hard mod or a soft mod to turn these on. However the gpu's were not exactly the same....they are the same but not from the same fab process IIRC and as such the 9500 did not overclock to the 9700 pro gpu frequencies.

It's dishonest but not in a bad way.....you are suppose to be getting one thing but you're in fact getting something much better. Howevere, I do agree that you're getting what you paid for and by re-enabling disabled features you're getting more than you paid for.

Not to sound crass but you're just saying the same thing I said....but it's nice to have people who agree with you.

Cheers