Hiya, I recently built the rig in my sig and am completely happy with it, but I can't help thinking that I'm missing out on something when everyone on here overclocks their PC. Is it really that big a deal? Does it reduce the life of your PC (even a mild OC)? Does it make that big a difference to your rig, or is it just a bragging rights thang? ...Oh, and if I do take this route how do I go about it? Youtube a how to? Read my MB manual? Any thoughts appreciated
Well, basically it's just extra performance at no extra cost (in monetary terms), so you'd be a bit silly not to if you've got components that are capable of doing it. Depending on how far you go with the overclocking it will probably reduce the lifespan of the components you push beyond their manufacturer's rated spec, but only by a small amount, and they should still easily last you until your next upgrade without blowing up in smoke (CPUs for example are generally designed to last for 10 years at their rated speed, but most people upgrade them every 2-3 years or so). Will you notice a difference? I can't answer that question without knowing the specs of your system and what you use it for - web browsing and word processing for example won't benefit from an overclock, but there are many applications that will, and there are certainly many games which will gain a few extra FPS from an extra few hundred MHz. The above generally applies to CPU overclocking. There are less gains to be had by overclocking GPUs and RAM, so many people don't bother with those as they will only serve to increase your temps (although RAM overclocking often comes part and parcel with CPU overclocking). There might be some limited information on the BIOS menus and overclocking features in your motherboard manual, but this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and from model to model, and there's probably some useful YouTube videos out there on the subject as well, but, as always, your primary source for information should probably be Google.
Thanks for the reply, I may have a stab after some research, I don't wanna wreck my gear again thanks
