Intro to overclocking

What is Overclocking?

What is "overclocking"? I'm sure you've all heard of it all over the various hardware sites and have seen people asking questions on our Message Boards , but what does it mean? It has to do something with performance, right?

You get what you pay for...well, not exactly.

In the case of CPU's, you actually get more than you pay for, usually. The reason why entails a brief, VERY SIMPLIFIED account of a major vendor's manufacturing process. When CPU manufacturers produce CPUs out of certain fabrication plants, or "fabs", they don't actually produce a certain clock speed of CPUs at a time. What I mean is when Intel, for example, produces PIIIs, they don't actually produce a whole bunch of PIIIs that are clocked at 500. They make a bunch of PIIIs using their manufacturing process, and then have to clock the PIIIs to see how fast they should be sold at. So, the CPUs that are made in a batch can be varying speeds, due a variety of factors in regards to the very ultra-sensitive process of microprocessor technology.

What does this mean for the consumer?

What this means for you, computer shoppers and do-it-yourselfers, is this: CPU manufacturers tend to be a bit conservative in the clock speeds that they label CPUs at. So if they made a batch of CPUs, and clocked them, let's say one of the CPUs hits 300 very easily, and can do 350 pretty well, too, but can barely manage stability at 400 MHz. Well, it's in a big company's interest to basically balance 2 things: they want to be able to sell a higher clocked chip in order to get a higher price, but they also want to be able to satisfy customers and not get complaints by offering stable chips. In light of this, most companies offer the chips marked at lower clock speeds, because they know that the chip will easily make that speed.

For us, though, this is great. What this means is that in a lot of cases, the chips that we purchase are able to exceed the clock speed that they are marked at, because they have this "hidden" potential that the manufacturer has chosen to not reveal. Thus, the overclocking community was born - those individuals who choose to take advantage of the extra bit of power that they can squeeze out of the CPU.

With this Overclocking Guide, we here at FiringSquad will try to let you in on some of the do's (and don'ts) of overclocking, and offer a simple guide for beginners to be able to understand. We understand as much as anybody else that gamers are always seeking the next upgrade and the performance edge, and we hope that we can provide the necessary info!

Note: A lot of the information provided in this article is from personal experience, and is reported as such. For example, there is a section where I rate CPUs' chances of success at certain speeds. This is by no means concrete, as fabs release different batches of chips with different quality all the time. Please keep this in mind as you read on with this article. Ok, back to scheduled the scheduled program.