September 28, 2009

Anybody who gets into system building will soon enough hear the term “Overclocking” tossed around left and right. As such, it helps to have at least a basic understanding of what this is, and how to go about it if you wish.

Simply put, overclocking is increasing the speed of one or more of your core computer components (usually your CPU) to achieve greater performance. In so doing, you can breathe new life into an older system and bring it more up to date, or get cutting edge performance from second- or third-tier products. While the most commonly overclocked component is the CPU, you can also overclock your RAM, and even most modern video cards.

However, overclocking isn’t without it’s downside as well. In order to keep your overclocked components stable so your system won’t crash, you have to increase the voltage to them, which increases the heat and rapidly speeds up chip wear. A drastically overclocked CPU, for example, will only last a fraction of the lifetime of a stock chip. Additionally, you have to ensure adequate cooling of the overclocked component, or you can very easily melt what you’re trying to speed up. Additionally, overclocking will most likely void your factory warranty, meaning you can be out a significant amount of money if you do end up turning your chip into slag.

Still, if after all that you are interested in giving it a try, the process is fairly simply though time-consuming. To overclock a CPU or your RAM you will need a fairly new motherboard with advanced BIOS controls so you can tweak the required settings. You then have to find the proper voltage to support your desired clock speed, keeping it as low as possible so the chip stays cool, but high enough that your system doesn’t crash. The most important (and time-consuming) part of the process, however, is testing. You need to stress test your system for hours at your chosen settings to ensure stability, tweak the settings, then test some more.

A more in-depth guide to overclocking your CPU will come later, as well as detailed instructions on how to test your setup. In the meantime, The Tech Report has a great guide for the whole process here.

Additionally, Benchmarkreviews.com, a dedicated overclocking enthusiast site, has another beginners guidehere.

Foremost among these innovations is the elimination of the front-side bus and the integration of the memory controller on-board. This allows for bandwidth rates up to 38.4 GB/s using three channels at 1600 MHz, compared to 12.8 GB/s on a Core 2 with a 1600 MHz FSB. These chips also boast improved performance when handling multi-threaded applications, using such technologies as Intel's TurboBoost and Hyper-Threading.

Is it worth trading in your Core 2 Quad for the latest processors? Probably not. However, the advances made with these chips are impressive enough that they are probably worth the extra money when it comes time to upgrade again.

The folks over at Tom's Hardware have an excellent in-depth review and analysis (with benchmarks) for the Core i5 and i7 brands. Read it here. And TechReport.com breaks the new tech down quite well for those of us without Doctorates in Electrical Engineering. Here.

Here are Intel's official pages:
Core i7
Core i5

And you can always count on Newegg for all of your shopping needs.

(Image courtesy of Intel.)