Off-Topic Learn Me: Overclocking 101

Okay, pretty much for computer geeks only.  What's the definitive guide to overclocking.  We all hear about it, but actual information is not easily discovered.  Is this one of those "turn it up until it crashes, then back it off a little," or are there some basic rules that generally result in success?

I find that real documentation on computer BIOS'es in general doesn't really exist.  The manufacturer pretty much assumes that it will auto-detect the hardware properly.

Any such thing as the "Idiots guide to overclocking?"

As always, TIA!

I am interested in this, and exactly what it means. I see people overclock cell phones that are cracked/rooted etc.

Most overclocking software is either BIOS based on the board, or software based included with the board. Basically, you need to buy a motherboard from a company that intends it be overclocked, Asrock, Gigabyte, etc. 

It used to be you could see which processors benefited from overclocking the most. Usually it was the mid-tier stuff that could be found on a good sale, then overclocked to compete with the top-tier stuff. Plus there were, and still are, only certain situations where overclocking is noticeable. 

I read about how underclocking some GPUs actually results in slightly better performance. 

It's been a long time since I did this, so I don't have much to offer on o/c the CPU; back when I was fooling around with it it was very much an experimental process. I will say that if you're looking at o/c the GPU, EVGA at least not only allows you to without voiding the warranty, but also provides software to make it easy.

Overclocking is increasing a CPU's clock frequency, thus increasing its performance. Sort of like increasing the redline on an ICE, if they simply made more power with more revs until they blew up/melted down

You can also similarly overclock RAM and GPUs but CPUs are most commonly overclocked.

Here's a good beginner's guide:

http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3761568/beginners-guide-overclocking-cpu-explicit-testing-guidelines.html

You can pretty much assume that BIOSes will detect hardware automatically. Sometimes they don't detect timings properly on high-performance RAM modules but apart from that, I've never had basic hardware detection problems.

Overclocking generally means you'll need better cooling, the CPU cooler your average computer comes with is just enough for running at factory clock speeds.

BTW, the only way underclocking will increase performance is if there's some thermal throttling system controlling clock speed stepping. Speed stepping is where the CPU clock speed is reduced to different levels to match demand...like cylinder deactivation. When you overclock, you're increasing the maximum speed setting. Lower clock speeds produce less waste heat and draw less power, but are less efficient in flops-per-watt, so operating systems mostly just use the highest and lowest settings to maximize performance and efficiency.

Most Intel processors are locked unless you buy one specifically for overclocking. 

All of AMD processors are unlocked and therefore can be overclocked. 

Here's most of what I know. Note that I don't have much real-world experience with actually trying to overclock.  

• On modern Intel processors, you have to get one labeled with a "k" at the end or be one of the high end desktop lines.
• On AMD's Ryzen processors, you need to get one of the chipsets that allows overclocking, but they allow it on all the CPUs.
• GPUs can be overclocked fairly easily with software.  CPUs you can overclock with BIOS settings.  
• You can overclock RAM.  Technically DDR4 is officially clocked at 2133 or 2400MHz, but there are certain ones that support up to 3200Hz.
• You can actually overclock some monitors to support higher refresh rates, eg get 75Hz out of a normally 60Hz monitor.
• Overclocking can wind up using significantly more power than stock, so you need to make sure that you get good components:
  • A good power supply, not just more watts, but one that actually delivers on its promises.  (It's like stereo amplifiers there...)
  • For CPU overclocking, you want a motherboard that has good power delivery.
  • For GPU overclocking, same, and check the number of power plugs it has.
• Since it uses up more power, it creates more heat.  You need to efficiently remove that heat.
  • You probably want either a beefy air cooler or water cooling for the CPU.  Water cooling a CPU is either a "custom loop" job or an all-in-one heatsink/pipes/pump/radiator setup.
  • For a GPU, you're usually stuck with the air cooler provided by the manufacturer (beefier cooling solutions are part of what differentiate the higher-end parts from the lower end parts).  
  • However, you can find water cooling blocks for some GPUs to include in a whole system "custom loop" water cooling solution.

Some AMD CPUs can also be core/cache unlocked. My work computer has an Athlon II X3 unlocked to Phenom II X4 specs. This gives access to all 4 cores and the L3 cache. It's no slouch for what it is.

You can overclock a Celeron 300A to 466mHz, but you need a crap ton of cooling to do it. That's the last processor I hot rodded 20 years ago. It was a fun experiment, but you could borderline use the computer as a space heater thanks to all the cooling fans and heat sinks. It ran Half Life like butter though!

I just had a flashback to running a 486 in a vat of motor oil for experiential cooling test. 

There was a good article on The Verge or Arstechnica talking about submerged liquid cooling. 

I still wonder from a cost-efficiency standpoint if you're better to upgrade to a threadripper or i9 rather than spending the time and money to watercool an overclocked mid-tier processor. 

This is more to forestall obsolescence than anything else.  The system in question belongs to my youngest, who is moving his Overwatch gameplay from the PS4 to the PC.  I do not claim to know why.  I just want to make his Socket FM2 A8-5600K up to the task. 

Because of the additional cooling requirement and the age of the system, I'll probably not go the overclock route, but the BIOS and motherboard DO support it.

He's very happy with the system since I put a GTX 1050 in it, which boosts graphics performance like tenfold over the integrated AMD graphics.  He's bumped up the detail level and it still delivers a pretty impressive frame rate.  The only other issue I'd like to resolve is the RAM, 8 GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3, which is labeled 1866 but identifies as 1333.  I've bumped it up to 1866 in the BIOS, but it still shows poorly in the userbenchmark app.  Not sure what the issue is there.

Thanks for the responses, guys!

And on the matter of AMD vs. Intel, I've always found AMD to deliver better bang for the buck.  Of the five systems I've built that are currently being used here, four are AMD, one is Intel.  I do own Intel stock however.  I do not mind profiting from their fleecing unwitting CPU buyers.

Unless you have alot of cooling every time I've ran anything overclocked its had heat throttling issues. With a friends help I built a gaming PC in 08 and too keep up with WoW by 2013 I had to overclock the GPU(old AMD radeon) and run a box fan blowing into my PC with the side cover off. 

I haven't overclocked since the Core 2 Duo days.  I had an E6850 up there, I think 3.8 Ghz.  I had a Pentium D 820 up around 3.4 Ghz before that.  That PD 820 was a pair of 90W dies, so that got me into water cooling.

Pretty much everyone has chimed in with the important stuff already.  A quality stable board from a reliable manufacturer that supports overclocking, I'm an Asus fan personally, but I've used all the major players and then some over the years.  A good power supply, that can support your efforts.  Finally, cooling!  I wouldn't waste much time on air cooling, with the plethora of AIO coolers on the market now, pick something off the Corsair, or Coolermaster AIO cooler tree, and use some good thermal paste.  I was an Arctic Silver fan forever, but have gone to Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut within the last couple years.

A lot of new boards have GUIs that will basically OC the system for you, directly from the Windows desktop, a lot easier than it used to be.

Back in my day, you adjusted your clock multiplier and/or voltages, ran a stress test, rinse and repeat, until it BSODed, then backed it off a touch.

Personally, I don't think I'd put a lot of effort into OCing an A8, you can pick up a same gen A10 5800K for $45, that should work in the same MB (might need a BIOS update) and will give you more gains than you'll get out of OCing that A8.

I'd probably spend $150-$200 on a some new-ish or eBay sourced parts, MB, some DDR4 RAM, and a 7th or 8th gen i5.

I've had great luck shopping 2-3 year old hardware on eBay.  I have great luck with the "make an offer" option on eBay listings too.  Worst they can say is no, but they usually counter with something reasonable.

Good luck!

Why it "works":  The frequency (technically, its inverse, the period) is the amount of time you have to get a signal between storage elements.  When you jack up the frequency you're shortening that amount of time.  Engineers design in a bit of margin to compensate for the effects of temperature, electrical noise, process variation (how they're built at the fab), etc.  When you overclock, you're exploiting this margin.  You can increase voltage to counteract some of this, but you can go too hot or too fast and other things start to break. 

How much margin do you have?  Chips are expensive to design and build tooling for, so let's say company "A" might build one main design but produce many derivatives out of the same base chip.  During manufacturing, chips are tested and sorted, then sold accordingly because they're guaranteed to work within those parameters.  Sometimes manufacturers will sell the fast chips as slow, meaning you've got a lot of margin to absorb (they're "underclocked" from the factory).  Other times, you're on the edge.  It can be difficult to know where your chip lies on the spectrum.

About "unlocking" extra cores or larger caches...  Also during manufacturing test, a chip might be found to have a defect in one of its cores, but since the others tested good they can still sell this chip as an 8 core, not a 10 core for example.  Same idea for the cache memory.  When you over-ride the factory setting, you might get a chip that actually tested good but was downgraded for sale, or not.  Again it can be difficult to know the difference.  Enterprise level stuff has a LOT of checking built in because nobody wants to explain why a customers' bank account balance suddenly dropped to $0.  Consumer level chips are more selective about checking... will the customer notice or care if they drop a frame or two while streaming cat videos?

bigdaddylee82 said:

Back in my day, you adjusted your clock multiplier and/or voltages, ran a stress test, rinse and repeat, until it BSODed, then backed it off a touch.

That brought a smile to my face. Sitting in front of my franken-tower, playing with jumpers and BIOS setting to get just a little more out of it. "Alright, it boots up. Loading Windows.....loading Unreal......CRASH!!!" Crap, back it off a hair. Or maybe it needs an 8th cooling fan...

For the truly insane there was a small ISP in Atlanta that had a rack in a freezer you could co-lo in for such shenanigans. But that was LOOOONG ago.

Any one else remember using a solder pen to change chip contacts on pre 386 systems?

1988RedT2 said:

The system in question belongs to my youngest, who is moving his Overwatch gameplay from the PS4 to the PC.  I do not claim to know why.

PC gaming is best gaming It'll probably save money in the long run too.

Check the timing and voltage on that RAM, some high-performance RAM requires overvoltage to run at full speed, and without it system stability would suffer.

In reply to GameboyRMH :

The system has been rock solid stable, both at 1333 and at 1866.  I'll get around to fiddling with it again, I'm sure.  But for now, the little guy is happy, and that's all that matters.  LOL.

I'm just curious why the benchmark program is showing what should be perfectly good RAM as significantly underperforming.

I will second what bigdaddy said and get the A10,  then you can OC that.

RevRico said:

Any one else remember using a solder pen to change chip contacts on pre 386 systems?

I remember the turbo button to go from 4.77 to 8 mhz on a 8088

Mark L said:

RevRico said:

Any one else remember using a solder pen to change chip contacts on pre 386 systems?

I remember the turbo button to go from 4.77 to 8 mhz on a 8088

Wow.  Beats me.  My first system was an AMD 386DX40.  There was a 286 running at ? 16MHz at the office.  My older brother had an Atari ST.