Overclocking - risk and considerations - is it worth it?

It is my first time who want to overclock after reading some reviews that one can mildly overclock to get 60-100% gains. It looks impressive.
I am a mild overclocker only. I want to buy some cheap CPUs and overclock them (so they perform like a high-end CPU with less price).

My overclocking principles
I will overclock as much as possible provided that the following conditions are met:
- without shortening my component's life (a very small diminish is acceptable)
- don't spend any/much on cooling device (unless the gains surpass the costs)


1. How risky mild overclocking is?
Originally I think mild overclocking is very low risk. That's why I want to try. But I read someone wrote this in its overclocking guide on the net. This scares me a bit.


Never truly stable? What does it mean?
Does it mean I will still get some crashes or BSOD (although seldom) even though I overclock mildly. If so, it is not acceptable to me. I want to make sure my computer is very stable even after overclocking.

Never overclock if I store important data on a PC? Why?
Does it mean my overclocked PC, even if mildly, will still corrupt my data (although seldom)?
My PC is going to be all-purpose, from working to gaming. Of course hard disk will store personal data and collections. They are not vital but you don't want to lose them anyway. I believe many general users has one PC for all purposes. They will of course have some files or personal data that they value much. This suggestion seems to tell all general users to avoid overclocking.

Please comment and share your experiences.
My overclocking is moderate, not something going to the extreme.


2. Selection on cooling device
For a moderate overclocker like me, what cooling device would you advise me to get?
Should I use the stock fans supplied by the vendor?
Should I buy raw CPUs and get a cheap third-party fan?
If latter, how cheap of fan should I get in order to ensure I can overclock up to the point that further overclock may shorten its life or more expensive cooling device is required?

PS: I think I am going to pick Intel E2140/E2160/E2180, or E4500/E4600 because they are highly overclockable (60-100%) while AMD 64 X2 Dual Core are not (10-20%).

3. RAM
Overclocking-wise, what brand of RAM is good for overclockability?
What RAM speed (DDR2 667 or 800) should I get?
I don't want to spend any extra on RAM as the performance gain is very little. If possible, I will overclock RAM too.
I only want to make sure my RAM speed can keep up with my CPU FSB (1:1 ratio) after it is overclocked. But I have no idea normally what RAM speed I need in this case?

4. Motherboard
What do I need to pay attention when I buy a motherboard regarding the overclocking aspect? I know that a good motherboard is required if I want to overclock my CPU and RAM. But I don't know what factors/features I should look for when I pick a motherboard. Please show me some lights.

Thanks a lot.

you need to keep in mind not all cpu's will overclock the same even if you see on the internet a review of a guy reaching a 1000mhz more wont mean yours will do even if its the same model. also it depends from witch batch the cpu was build. it is also important to understand that overclocking is a very addictive sport and that if you say that you want to stay in the mild overclocking stage, fine but stay there because otherwise it will most likely cost you more expensive then if you buy a high end cpu . you will have to consider having a few essentiel components to be able to overclock and not be limited like, good psu and memory. but that is an example that overcloking can turn out more expensive then you think. read the overclocking how to guide on this awesome forum.



overclocking even a 300mhz increase can reduce the life time of your cpu of about half. but dont worry even reduced from half it will still last very long, long enough that you will have time to upgrade 10 times. UNLESS you begin to add to much voltage or that your components overheat. stock cooling will be ok but dont think it will do miracles.




ok this is true at some points but this person wants more to scare ppl then anything or at least aware them that anything can hapen and he doesnt want to be responsible . but with all my overclocking experience and im sure ppl can back me up on this, if you overclock not to much and dont add more voltage and dont let you cpu overheat and you make sure it is 100% stable there is almost no problem at all. it is when you start going beyond default voltage and beyond heat dissipation capability of the stock cooler that is more risky. but always if you ensure that the setup is perfectly stable there is very low risk. an other thing, wat that guys says about pc never perfectly stable when overclocked. well im not realy agreeing with him. if you use softwares like prime or orthos and memtest to test your overclock and able to run them few hours, then it is enough stable. note also that you can lose you data at anytime even when you install an incorrect driver and that messes up windows at the point of corrupting data. or even a virus. but yes there is risk of loosing data when overclocking even when overclocking just a little bit. you need to understand that when overclocking you will test how far you can go on stock voltage and you wont know in advance when you will need to increase voltage and when it will hapen it is there that your system will be unstable and can corrupt windows and data you will know by test and errors. so i suggest to backup everything or at least keep your important stuff on a secondary drive. in D drive for exemple.



this depends on wat socket you will use keep reading this forum to be updated on the good aftermaket coolers. the life time of your components are reduced right away when you start overclocking even if the temps are good.



intel is a good choice. i suggest at least the e4xxx series because of the l2 cache. the e2xxx series have 1mb l2 cache. e4xxx have 2mb l2 cache and e6xxx have 4mb l2 cache.



if you want to keep it at 1:1 ration you will need very good memory thus making it more expensive. go in the memory forum to find out wicth memory is good.



go look at some reviews and how well motherboards are quoted. most of the time in those reviews they also test the overclocking capability. you need to look for a board with a well known chipset and with alot of overclocking options in the bios.



your welcome

This is what I expect. Overclocking reasonably should be a very low risk game.

I would like to ask more about data corruption. Of course I know data corruption may occur when I am testing how far my CPU/RAM etc. can go. That isn't a problem since this is a new computer (so nothing important will be installed at that time).

What I am concerned is whether data corruption occurs after the overclocking test. I overclock up to a level where I can pass all stability tests so I stop here. Will I still encounter any data corruption when I use this tested overclocked PC for my daily use?

if you pass those stability test correctly and that you run them for a resonable time that means your system is stable enough to do very hard calculations and many at the same time. at that point no it wont corrupt your data for nothing. i've been overclocking for years now and i never lost data because of a stable overclock.

Thanks for your answer.


Benchmark does show some differences. However I doubt whether there is any noticeable difference in real world. My computer is not used to run benchmark tests. What I need is true performance gains. Read this benchmark. The difference is so small. 2MB vs 1MB cache may save you like 10 seconds only in a few cases. I don't consider my 10 seconds being worth ~US$45 (E2160 vs E4500).

Benchmark score in file compression is illusion. The biggest bottleneck of this task is your hard drive. The real world gain is about less than 1-2% only even if you compare 1MB vs 4MB cache.

I also have doubts about gaming aspect. E21XX series (1MB cache) can achieve nearly 80fps. If you use E4XXX series, you may get +6-15fps. However human can't notice any difference if the fps is above 60fps or more (so your gaming experience won't be affected). It would be more interested to test if they can keep 60fps or more nearly all the time. I don't see the point why I need higher fps. Higher fps doesn't mean better true gaming experiences. Also I believe graphic card plays a much larger role and it can make up for that, isn't it?