If the clock frequency is increased too far, eventually some component in the system will not be able to cope and the system will stop working. This failure may be continuous (the system never works at the higher frequency) or intermittent (it fails more often but works some of the time) or, in the worst case, irreversible (a component is damaged by overheating/overvolting). Overclocking may necessitate improved cooling to maintain the same level of reliability.
Why do people overclock?
Most people overclock out of thrift, and the satisfaction of pushing the hardware’s limits. These people (myself included) are out to purchase the slower (and less expensive) hardware to yield better performance than their higher-priced equivalent. Example: Say I buy the AMD 3700+ San Diego core processor (2.2 GHz with 1MB cache multiplier locked at 11) at a price of $233. I get it home and I overclock it to 2.6 GHz, which is the equivalent of an AMD FX-55 San Diego (2.6 GHz 1MB Cache unlocked multiplier) at a price of $811… I just saved my self $578 Now let’s get some better cooling, like water, peltier, or vapor chill and clock it to 2.8 GHz. That is the equivalent of an AMD FX-57 (2.8 1MB cache unlocked multiplier) at $1011. Now the money I just saved on the processor just paid a hefty chunk of the cooling, with a $778 savings! For that you could have bought 3 more 3700+ processors.
By overclocking you just might gain 10-15 FPS in the latest games, such as DOOM 3 or Battlefield 2. That does give you bragging rights though. Benchmarking… “The new extreme sport!” (Extreme sports (now also known as action sports) is a general, somewhat hazily-defined term for a collection of newer sports involving adrenaline-inducing action. They often feature a combination of speed, height, danger and spectacular stunts. Levels of danger vary widely, but there is always an element — an “extreme” factor — that causes an adrenaline rush which keeps participants loyal to their sport.)
My personal Futuremark 3DMark05 Score.
Futuremark 3DMark05 scores change all the time because someone squeezing 50mhz more out of their processor (or 20Mhz more out of his video memory). These guys take overclocking very seriously, and are three to four-thousand dollars, sometimes more on hardware and cooling solutions. The record for 3dMark05 at the moment is 17,560. This score belongs to Kinc * SWE * Team Hardware Asylum*. They are running a AMD FX-57 Overclocked to 3.917Ghz, two Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX’S clocked at Core 675mhz, Memory at 1584mhz on extreme cooling. The Average overclocker gets between 3000 points and 8500 points, it just depends on how much money they have spent on their hardware. Personally I have about $3800 tied up in mine, and I have a respectable score of 13,094.
On the flip side of saving the money you must have the patience to deal with the BSODs (Blue Screen of Death), the hours of stability testing, the hundreds of dollars spent on roasted hardware. Not to mention the RMA time you will spend waiting on parts that have defects that jump out and confuse you while testing that processor at 2.6ghz
You are voiding your warranty most of the time while overclocking your processors, memory, and video cards. Most manufacturers are implamenting a limited lifetime warranty, while others have a one to five year limited warranty. AMD® Processors have a 3 year limited warranty on the retail box processors, where Intel’s warranty is virtually the same. With some brief reading both companies require that the heat sink/cooling solution that is provided with the processor is the one that is used for the warranty to be valid…
AMD’s warranty
This Limited Warranty shall be null and void if the AMD microprocessor which is the subject of this Limited Warranty is used with any heat sink/fan other than the one provided herewith. From AMD warranty documents.
This is a Picture of a AMD Athlon 4400+ X2 with the Intigrated heat spreader removed… Warranty VOID!
Intel’s warranty
This is a clip of Intel’s warranty document that you can find on their website..
So technically when you slap that Thermalright XP90® on that 3000+ or Pentium 4, you have voided the warranty. Video card manufacturers are getting more lenient on “unconventional” cooling solutions. The video cards of today are coming overclocked from the factory, so why should we be left with the conventional cooling solution? So we end up voiding our warranties just to get the high temperatures from that 6800gt down to reasonable levels. Well some companies are changing…
EVGA™ has revised their Lifetime warranty.
“This lifetime warranty is valid for the life of the retail product, so long as the original purchaser owns the product, based upon the following conditions:
- Lifetime Warranty is for all retail Graphics Card and Mainboard products ending in the part numbers AX, DX, or FX
- There is no physical damage to the PCB, GPU/chipset, or components
” I quoted this directly from their warranty posted on their website, but for this warranty to be effective for you, your EVGA™ product (graphics card, or Mainboard) must have been purchased on or after June22, 2005.
The warranty is rather vague and does not state anything about overclocking, or cooling solution changes. Most of the EVGA™ Graphics cards are overclocked from the factory so I don’t think that that would have an issue on the warranty portion. This warranty has also leaded me to be a new EVGA™ customer and purchase two of their 7800GT 256-P2-N516, which should be here today.
So basically what you end up with is a voided warrany, some cheaper hardware that will perform with the Big Dogs and the knowledge to pass on to others that will need help. The warranties are getting better toward the overclocker, but the hardware is getting more difficult to overclock. I wonder how the AMD M2™ will overclock using DDR2™? I guess we will have to wait and see…
- In part 2 you can look forward to:
- Overclocking terms
- Some key components that will make or break you overclocking rig
- Basic software that you will need to test stability, and speeds
- Basic Overclocking how to