I am about to buy a new computer and I am wondering if it is safe to overclock my new CPU. I have heard alot about it and dont understand y anyone would not do it. Does it hurt or shorten the life of the system? if there truly was no downside then why wouldnt AMD and Intel overclock the CPU's to begin with and get more power out of them? i would just like to know if there are downsides, and what they are, i am trying to decide whether to overclock my new CPU thanks

The primary risk is when you increase speed settings or voltage in a large sudden jump and you fry the cpu. Intel also has some low risk of SNDS (sudden northwood death syndrome) which happens once in a while on a cpu that is overvolted by 20% or more and it runs fine for weeks or months and then just dies. This is too rare on an amd xp to worry about, and avoidable on the p4. Its commonly believed that every ten degree increase to your cpu temp cuts its life in half, but the evidence just isn't there or is not worth worrying about. If your cpu dies in 2008 instead of 2018 who really cares. "then why wouldnt AMD and Intel overclock the CPU's to begin with and get more power out of them" Neither intel nor amd is able to manufacture chips that have a max speed variation anywhere near what the public demands. The public wants to buy some super fast chips, some medium chips and some slower chips, maybe over a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio of speed, but the manufacturing process lends itself to only a very small difference in speed among chips. If GM's manufacturing cost was the same for a Cadillac as it was for a Chevy, they would still sell both cars, and do so at very different prices. For the most part, excepting minor differences like taking the highest rated cpus out of the center of the wafer, cpu manufacturers are selling the same chip at the high end as at the low end. There are probably also chips that fail at their high speed test so they are then rated at a lower speed, but you don't hear about this too much. You could then say well why don't intel and amd lock their cpu multipliers and fsb so you can't overclock them which would then force you to buy faster chips in the first place. Well Intel does exactly that by locking the multiplier and has talked about locking the fsb too but yes yet to do so. And amd suffered such user revolt when they locked the first XPs that they then made the next version unlocked.

dont ever put more than 1.75vcore in to an intel p4 insant deth sendrum but AMD cpu's if you get a good one can take up to 2.32vcore