Asus Puts on an Overclocking Clinic at Blizzcon

Overclocking is frequently justified as giving needed performance, but in a lot of cases, people do it just to see if they can. There's a bit of pride in taking a 2.4GHz processor and make it run at 4 GHz.

Others, though, are scared off. They fear frying their CPU and/or motherboard. So for both types, ASUS was here at Blizzcon showing off some very simple how-to steps for newbie and veteran alike.

The overclocker clinic is something they run at LAN events and shows like Blizzcon and Quakecon. At the table, they had three systems for overclocking: one air cooled; one water-cooled; and one using refrigeration.

Thanks to BIOS profiles designed for overclocking, it's possible to download a profile, install it in your BIOS and set up an ideal overclocking configuration depending on what kind of cooling you have. People who had never overclocked in their lives were hitting 4GHz and even 5GHz speeds.

And if you screw it up, you can connect a laptop to the PC via the USB port to reset the BIOS. No more of that nonsense where you had to move a jumper on a hard-to-reach spot on the motherboard or remove the CMOS battery.

ASUS also showed off a series of laptops with Nvidia's 3D video technology, all of them running StarCraft 2 in 3D (special glasses needed, of course). This included the NX90Jq, due to ship this month, and the N73Jq-A2.

Other systems being shown off were the three-foot-tall Danger Den, with four video cards inside, and a clear plastic double case that had two systems inside.