Introducing overclocking for newbies
What is overclocking?
Overclocking is mainly a set of well-known mechanisms that you apply to your machine to gain better performance. Some claim that after overclocking their machines, the overall system performance increases by up to 30% to 50%. Overclocking procedures can generally be applied to many components in any computer system including the motherboard, the CPU, memory and graphics cards. In most cases, overclocking one component affects the others. Thus, overclocking is not an easy task, but when successfully done, the results are very encouraging.
Overclocking is risky though,
When you overclock any of the components in your machine, you force them to operate at speeds higher than their ratings. This leads, as you’ll see a little bit later, to increasing their temperature. If there is no sufficient cooling for these components, the system becomes unstable and some of the components could be totally damaged. Fair overclocking usually doesn’t require any additional devices. However, if you are willing to extremely overclock your device, you’ll need to add any convenient cooling device that keeps your system stable.
Is overclocking really worth it?
Overclocking lets you save considerable amounts of money while gaining great performance. Why buy a P4 2.2 GHz processor while you can buy a P4 2.0 GHz processor and make it operate at the 2.2 GHz you wish for with no extra money? You can even overclock your plain old 1.6 GHz chip to make it work at 2.0 GHz or 2.2 GHz with additional cooling solutions that are relatively cheap. The trick is to buy components that support overclocking. Most motherboards available today have this feature, but some still don’t. If your motherboard supports overclocking, then you can squeeze some extra speed out of it before considering buying a new one.
How does overclocking work?
To understand how overclocking works, you should know that all system components are slaved by a single master clock. In 32 bit systems, that clock is the one provided by the motherboard to the FSB (Front Side Bus). Any component is accompanied with its own multiplier/divider that lets it operate at a multiple/fraction of the FSB speed. Some components might be “locked”. This means that their multiplier/divider values cannot be altered. Also, for most modern motherboards, buses such as the AGP or the PCI have independent speed controllers. This allows them to operate independently of the FSB.
We can conclude that any component speed in any 32-bit system is determined by:
Component speed = FSB * component multiplier
For 64-bit systems, the idea is pretty much the same though terminologies are a bit different.
Overclocking is simply done by manipulating the FSB clock and the different multipliers/dividers values (if they’re not locked) to obtain overall balance for components. Most people will want to overclock their CPU, since it’s the performance bottleneck. This introduces interdependence between the CPU speed and the motherboard and memory speeds. Thus adjusting the speeds of the motherboard, CPU and memory altogether is the heart of overclocking. This can be done through reconfiguring the BIOS – the firmware that comes along with your motherboard.
That’s not all though. Changing clock speeds requires changing the operating voltages of the various components. Temperature increases linearly as the clock increases, but it increases exponentially as the voltages increase. If you’re lucky enough, you will be able to slightly overclock your system without changing the voltages. Higher levels of overclocking will raise the voltages and the temperature and will make it necessary to use additional cooling systems.
Generally speaking, before you start overclocking your CPU you need to determine two things:
1- Is your CPU locked?
All INTEL CPUs are already locked – their multiplier values cannot be changed. All AMD 64-bit CPUs are unlocked while some AMD 32-bit CPUs are locked and some are not.
Remember that if the CPU is locked, this will allow you to alter the FSB clock speed only and then adjust the other components speeds. If it’s unlocked, this gives much more flexibility.
2- What is your motherboard chipset?
Your motherboard chipset determines how your memory depends on the motherboard speed. It also determines whether you’ll be able to change the chipset operating voltages.
Once you know the answer to those two questions, you are ready to dig deeper to know all the device-specific details required for overclocking.
What is overclocking?
Overclocking is mainly a set of well-known mechanisms that you apply to your machine to gain better performance. Some claim that after overclocking their machines, the overall system performance increases by up to 30% to 50%. Overclocking procedures can generally be applied to many components in any computer system including the motherboard, the CPU, memory and graphics cards. In most cases, overclocking one component affects the others. Thus, overclocking is not an easy task, but when successfully done, the results are very encouraging.
Overclocking is risky though,
When you overclock any of the components in your machine, you force them to operate at speeds higher than their ratings. This leads, as you’ll see a little bit later, to increasing their temperature. If there is no sufficient cooling for these components, the system becomes unstable and some of the components could be totally damaged. Fair overclocking usually doesn’t require any additional devices. However, if you are willing to extremely overclock your device, you’ll need to add any convenient cooling device that keeps your system stable.
Is overclocking really worth it?
Overclocking lets you save considerable amounts of money while gaining great performance. Why buy a P4 2.2 GHz processor while you can buy a P4 2.0 GHz processor and make it operate at the 2.2 GHz you wish for with no extra money? You can even overclock your plain old 1.6 GHz chip to make it work at 2.0 GHz or 2.2 GHz with additional cooling solutions that are relatively cheap. The trick is to buy components that support overclocking. Most motherboards available today have this feature, but some still don’t. If your motherboard supports overclocking, then you can squeeze some extra speed out of it before considering buying a new one.
How does overclocking work?
To understand how overclocking works, you should know that all system components are slaved by a single master clock. In 32 bit systems, that clock is the one provided by the motherboard to the FSB (Front Side Bus). Any component is accompanied with its own multiplier/divider that lets it operate at a multiple/fraction of the FSB speed. Some components might be “locked”. This means that their multiplier/divider values cannot be altered. Also, for most modern motherboards, buses such as the AGP or the PCI have independent speed controllers. This allows them to operate independently of the FSB.
We can conclude that any component speed in any 32-bit system is determined by:
Component speed = FSB * component multiplier
For 64-bit systems, the idea is pretty much the same though terminologies are a bit different.
Overclocking is simply done by manipulating the FSB clock and the different multipliers/dividers values (if they’re not locked) to obtain overall balance for components. Most people will want to overclock their CPU, since it’s the performance bottleneck. This introduces interdependence between the CPU speed and the motherboard and memory speeds. Thus adjusting the speeds of the motherboard, CPU and memory altogether is the heart of overclocking. This can be done through reconfiguring the BIOS – the firmware that comes along with your motherboard.
That’s not all though. Changing clock speeds requires changing the operating voltages of the various components. Temperature increases linearly as the clock increases, but it increases exponentially as the voltages increase. If you’re lucky enough, you will be able to slightly overclock your system without changing the voltages. Higher levels of overclocking will raise the voltages and the temperature and will make it necessary to use additional cooling systems.
Generally speaking, before you start overclocking your CPU you need to determine two things:
1- Is your CPU locked?
All INTEL CPUs are already locked – their multiplier values cannot be changed. All AMD 64-bit CPUs are unlocked while some AMD 32-bit CPUs are locked and some are not.
Remember that if the CPU is locked, this will allow you to alter the FSB clock speed only and then adjust the other components speeds. If it’s unlocked, this gives much more flexibility.
2- What is your motherboard chipset?
Your motherboard chipset determines how your memory depends on the motherboard speed. It also determines whether you’ll be able to change the chipset operating voltages.
Once you know the answer to those two questions, you are ready to dig deeper to know all the device-specific details required for overclocking.
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