Tom's Hardware > Forum > Overclocking > General Discussion > [Solved] Why exactly overclock?

[Solved] Why exactly overclock?

Forum Overclocking : General Discussion [Solved] Why exactly overclock?

I'm pretty new to the whole hardware concepts and all, and OC is not exactly a new concept to me. I still don't quite grasp the meaning of overclocking to the extreme though. Is air cooling sufficient enough for overclocking say 1 GHz? Liquid cooling is expensive and seems to me like a really addict option to doing whatever you do. I find it hard to grasp the concept of overclocking that much, but I am still new to the whole thing. Could you guys help explain to me how it works and why exactly people do it to such an extreme? I would normally think even just 3.5 GHz is fine for playing the new FPS games and RPGs that require a bit of GPU and CPU power. I don't see going to 4.0 GHz and beyond. If you guys could inform me on the topic and teach me a little that would be great. Thanks!

Reply to yanjustin98

What is overclocking?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overclocking

Why do we overclock?
Two reasons:
To improve performance.
Because we can.

How?
Depends on the CPU and motherboard.

Reply to jsc

And not all Water coolers do it for extreme overclocks,
I did it because I love engineering challenges,

to a point overclocking helps you get a little (or a lot) more power for your money,
theres obviously the bragging rights for a mad O/c Bro!
a lot of people do it to try to get the highest clocks, and some need to do it to make their system last a little while longer, hang around here a while and you'll soon pick things up mate
Moto

------------------------------ Once you start watercooling, you are almost automatically inducted into the modding circles as well, because theres rarely a 'from the box, fits everyone' solution, its your ingenuity and resourcefulness that makes it all happen,
Reply to Motopsychojdn

Push to the limits Nicely said JSC, because we can )

Reply to spike15_mk

Best answer

yanjustin98 wrote :

Overclocking has always been about getting more than what you paid for, it's like an untapped resource that requires knowledge for you to be able to tap it, some motherboards allow a controlled automatic overclock and I would suggest you either take that route or get down to seriously studying and researching how to do it.

Overclocking to extreme means different concepts to different people, to me extreme is overclocking cooling with LN2 (Liquid Nitrogen), but to you extreme may mean a high end Air Cooler or Water Cooling, most do relate extreme to exceeding the CPUs rated voltage range.

Why they do it is because they have fully discovered How to do it and have accepted all the risks that come along with overclocking, and overclocking is a hardware risk even at moderate levels, overclocking is also to a certain extent addicting, and the further you get into it, the more addictive it becomes.

When you get to the point you're buying components to overclock right out of the box, you're hooked, you can deny it all you want but it's still going to be a part of you.

Some want to spend as little as they can and push it as far as they possibly can, some spend the bucks specifically on the best components to take it even further, and some out of raw curiosity decide to do it with almost zero knowledge to get them there, and are usually the next posters here begging for help, salvaging their damaged hardware.

There are so many reasons to overclock, but you seem concerned with the extreme end, but asked about a 1ghz overclock, which is very reachable today with the Sandy Bridge K Series, and IMO is not extreme at all, so what does extreme actually mean to you, do you even know?