Just wondering if anyone can quantify the benefits of OCing my current system. Everything runs fine, no real problems since I've built it (excluding the occasional Real Player freeze). I have an Asus A7N8X-DX, xp2500 with 512 pc2700 (Crucial). Everything is running at 333 fsb. Additionally, does anyone recommend the use of an extra Vid Card Fan (I have a 9700 pro).

Thanks in Advance.

If someone overclocked your machine without your knowledge you would be unlikely to notice it. Its mostly for fun.

A few processors suh as the 1700+ will overclock 50%-70%, which is noticeable. Yours has about 20% of headroom, which you probably would not notice since it is so fast already. A 200mhz cpu overclocked 20% you would notice, but not one that's already 2ghz.

i'm running an amd xp2500+ also on the non deluxe A7N8X with 512 pc2700...this thing flies...it's so quick...what i want to do is get some pc3200 and overclock my FSB to 200, i'm finding that when the fsb and memory are matched in speed, it's a good combo...looking forward to bumping those 2 speeds to 400..right now i think this system is faster than my 2.4 ghz pentium 4 laptop

The real benefits of ocing your cpu & ram are..you get some things done like 5 sec faster,you might get 10 or 15 fps more in some games. so you only save seconds which might not seem like much to some people, but that's up to you to decide.

So if your system is already really fast and all you want is more FPS in your games the best thing to do would be to oc your video card. you can get 30 fps or more by ocing it. plus it's less risky and usually less expesive to replace if you break it.

Mitch,

I agree with the above. Try overclocking your video card and get some more RAM first. Its definitly a less expensive solution than melting your CPU down. Also remember one important thing when overclocking...TAKE SMALL STEPS!!....when you get greedy, thats when bad things happen. I've also read articles about guys overclocking thier video cards and they run fine for a while but then they start reporting some strange things..crashing and funny things on their screen. Then they actually have to UNDERCLOCK the card to get it working somewhat normal. Sounds like youve got a pretty fast system already so to answer your question...dont overclock unless you really get bored with the system you have and feel like replacing your CPU...If it aint broke, dont fix it....Cheers and Good luck!!!

Thanks for the help all. I guess I'll refrain from OC, at least until I'm no longer happy with my machine's peformance.