What Is Overclocking? What Does It Do?
What is overclocking? Should you overclock your computer? Why overclocking a computer for better performance? Many people may not know what overclocking is, but they may have heard of the terms used before. Learn what it is and whether you should try it on your computer.
What is overclocking?
In short, overclocking is occupying computer components such as processors and operating at specifications higher than the manufacturer's rating. In other words, you can run your computer harder and faster than overclocking.
Companies such as Intel and AMD evaluate each part they produce at a specific speed. They test each function and authenticate it at a given speed. These companies underestimated most parts to improve reliability. Overclocking the part can take advantage of its remaining potential.
Why overclocking computers?
The main benefit of overclocking is that additional computer performance can be obtained at no additional cost. Most people who overclock their systems either want to try to produce the fastest desktop system possible or want to expand their computer functions within a limited budget. In some cases, users can improve their system performance by 25% or more. For example, someone may buy products such as amd 2500 , and after careful overclocking, the final processor has the same processing capacity as amd 3000 , but the cost is greatly reduced. There are disadvantages in overclocking the computer system. The biggest disadvantage of overclocking computer parts is that you will waive any warranty provided by the manufacturer because it does not operate within its rated specifications. Pushing overclocking components to the limit will often shorten the functional life, or even cause catastrophic damage if handled improperly. Therefore, all overclocking guidelines on the Internet will have a disclaimer to remind individuals of these facts, and then tell you the steps of overclocking.
Bus speed and multiplier
All CPU processor speeds are based on two different factors: bus speed and multiplier.
Bus speed is the core clock cycle rate at which the processor communicates with items such as memory and chipset. It is usually rated in MHz rating, which refers to the number of cycles per second. The problem is that bus terms are often used in different aspects of computers and may be lower than users expect.
For example, the AMD XP 3200 processor uses 400 MHz DDR memory, but the processor uses a 200MHz front-end bus whose clock frequency is doubled to use 400 MHz DDR memory. Similarly, the Pentium 4 C processor has an 800 MHz front-end bus, but it is actually a four pump 200 MHz bus.
The multiplier is the actual number of processing cycles that the CPU will run in a single clock cycle of the bus speed. Therefore, the Pentium 4 2.4GHz "B" processor is based on the following conditions:
133 MHz x 18 multiplier = 2394 MHz or 2.4 GHz
When overclocking a processor, these are two factors that affect performance. The increase in bus speed will have the greatest impact because it will increase factors such as memory speed (if memory runs synchronously) and processor speed. The effect of multiplier is lower than bus speed, but it will be more difficult to adjust.
This is an example of three amd processors:
These are two examples of overclocking the xp2500 processor to see what the rated clock speed is by changing the bus speed or multiplier:
Since some unscrupulous dealers are overclocking ultra-low rated processors and selling them as high priced processors, overclocking has become a problem, so manufacturers have begun to implement hardware locking to make overclocking more difficult. The most common method is through clock locking. The manufacturer modified the routing on the chip to run only with a specific multiplier. Users can remove this protection by modifying the processor, but this is much more difficult.
Management voltage
Each computer component has a specific operating voltage. During overclocking, the electrical signal may drop as it passes through the circuit. If the degradation is sufficient, the system may become unstable. When the bus or multiplier speed is overclocked, the signal is more vulnerable to interference. To solve this problem, you can increase the voltage of CPU core, memory or AGP bus.
The number of applications that users can apply to the processor is limited. If used too much, the circuit may be damaged. Usually this is not a problem because most motherboards limit settings. A more common problem is overheating. The more you provide, the higher the heat output of the processor.
Heat treatment
The biggest obstacle to overclocking of computer systems is overheating. Today's high-speed computer systems have generated a lot of heat. Overclocking of computer systems complicates these problems. Therefore, anyone who intends to overclock their computer system should understand the requirements of high-performance cooling solutions.
The most common form of cooling a computer system is through standard air cooling: CPU heat sink and fan, heat sink on memory, fan on video card, and chassis fan. Proper air flow and proper conductive metal are very important for air cooling performance. Large copper radiators tend to perform better, and additional chassis fans draw air into the system to improve heat dissipation.
Besides air cooling, there are liquid cooling and phase change cooling. These systems are much more complex and expensive than standard PC cooling solutions, but they have higher performance in heat dissipation and usually lower noise. A perfect system can make the overclocking device push its hardware performance to the limit, but the final cost may be higher than the processor cost. Another disadvantage is that liquid flowing through the system may damage or damage the equipment due to short circuit.
Component considerations
There are many factors that affect whether you can overclock your computer system. The first and most important is the motherboard and chipset with BIOS, which allows users to modify settings. Without this feature, you cannot change the bus speed or multiplier to improve performance. Most commercial computer systems provided by major manufacturers do not have this function. Those interested in overclocking tend to buy parts and build computers.
In addition to the ability of the motherboard to adjust CPU settings, other components must be able to handle the increased speed. Purchase high rated speed or tested memory to maintain the best memory performance. For example, overclocking the Athlon XP 2500 front-end bus from 166 MHz to 200 MHz requires the system to have pc3200 or DDR400 level memory.
The speed of the front-end bus can also adjust other interfaces in the computer system. Chipset usage ratio reduces the front-end bus speed to match the interface. The three main interfaces of the desktop are AGP (66 MHz), PCI (33 MHz) and ISA (16 MHz). After adjusting the front-end buses, these buses will also exceed the specification unless the chipset BIOS allows the scale to be reduced. Remember that changing the bus speed may affect the stability of other components. Of course, adding these bus systems can also improve their performance, but only if these components can process speed. However, most expansion cards have very limited tolerances.
