Overclocking... Should I?

[Anticrombie0909]

what was he wrong about...he said get a 2.8 or 3.0, and even 87x said price wasnt an issue

Price may not be an issue, but that's no call for you to throw money away. Hell, if price isn't an issue, I got a great comp for him! It can be found here: www.alienware.com
Paying $500 to upgrade a 2.6 to a 3.0 with HT is wasting $450, because that's about how much the speed change is worth: $50

[makaveli121212]

so whats he wrong about again

[tnyhwk900]

wtf

he's upgrading a 1.6, not a 2.6 :\

Plus, a 3.0 w/ HT isn't $500, chrissakes. it's $225.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=19-116-156&DEPA=0

[Jello]

maka go on aim and talk to me ya fool...

yea if u wanna over clock basicly just get some cooling... a few fans here and there is a good thing , maybe some new heatsinks.. bigger is better.
just go into the bios and change the frequency of the processer.. thats all you are really doing. you can run that thing at 5 ghz if you had like the proper cooling.. so if you are going to over clock just make sure you cool things down.

[tnyhwk900]

^Jello's right, my friend overclocked a 2.66 to 4.3 with 2 fans and a better heatsink. It only lasted half it's normal life though :P

[VxDx]

uhhh, I highly doubt that.

Hypothermia only got a 4.44Ghz out of a 3.0 with dual vapochills and some crazy vmoddage. No way he got a 4.3 aircooled.

If you think jello is right and all that overclocking is is changing the frequency in the bios and having the cooling, you are sorely mistaken and I'd like to see how much of a overclock you could get with that technique.

Edit: oh yeah, and the highest legit 2.66 OC on overclockers.com is 3.6 with a prometeia phase-change cooler.

[Jello]

i said thats basically what you are doing. anyways ive seen way higher then 4 ghz... ive seen over 10 ghz easily... IBM labs downtown toronto ran a CPU at near absolute 0.. i think it was at 3 kelvin or something. but oh well.

[VxDx]

Sure, I suppose, but were not talking that kind of cooling. We're talking air-cooled.

[87x]

ok maybee the price isn't an issue thing got carried too high... price isn't an issue until it reaches over 2 grand.. then it becomes a major issue.. so.. with that new information in mind.. what could i do to my home computer to booste the preformance?.. also while we are sorta of on the subject.. whats a really good video card that is capable of handling anything i want to do?.. im probably going to get a new processor (around 3-4 ghz) but i don't want it to be waisted because my mother board can't handle it.. how do i find out if my already installed hardware can support such a major shift of power?

[tnyhwk900]

Depends what kinds of games you play. If you play Halo at most, get a 128 mb card. For ATI get a Radeon 9600 or so, Nvidia- get a 5700 or so. I'm personally planning on getting this one for my new comp.

[VxDx]

^^eww no.
for 2 grand, you could build a top of the line computer, and for slightly less you could build a 1 off of a top of the line.

Video Card: Radeon 9800 Pro (<250)
Sound Card: SB Audigy (50)
Processor: Pentium 4 3.0gHz with Hyper Threading (220) or AMD Athalon 64 3200+ (282)
RAM: 1gb (2x512) matched pair PC3200 DDR high quality (260) low quality, not matched pair (150)
Motherboard: personal preference, a lot of choices here... high quality(150) lower (100)
DVD-ROM:generic (40)
CD-RW:good quality, good buffer (50)
PSU: 450W reliable, great quality (<100)
Case: generic (50)
Keyboard & Mouse: generic, whatever you have (0-50)
Moniter: perhaps keep, perhaps a flat screen 19" (0-250)
Speakers: same, perhaps 5.1 (0-150)

In total, this is practically a top of the line system, and depending on your needs it will only run you $1010-$1682. If I were buiding a computer now, like I did about 5 months ago, this would be what I'd build. I really am mad that I didn't do certain things right when I got my computer. I only got 512 of high quality ram and I only got an athalon XP. Athalon 64 would be what to get nowadays, but pentiums are always good too, buit I've always been an athalon man, and an ATi man. NVidia never really wowed me with their business ethics, or the performance of their cards. I hope that gave you some options, but as for the video card, definately get the radeon9800 pro, or the 9700 pro if you can find one.

[Anticrombie0909]

Argh, Vx beat me to it...but he's absolutely right. At this point it'd probably be cheaper (and more benificial) in the long run just to scrap your old comp (Microcenter gives you $ for parts) and build a new one. Anyway, basically everything Vx just said is exactly what you should do. Make sure everything you buy is compatible, and get a hire a geek squad to hook it up for you (you can do it very very wrong if you don't know what you're doing, another friend of mine short-circuited his 64 bit about three times before he figured out what the problem was, as a result, it's halfway fried). When you're buying everything, www.pricewatch.com is your friend. It'll give you up to date prices on everything you need, so make sure you don't get ripped off.