Hi all, This week's poll question is about overclocking your CPU. Discuss here what you think about the virtues of overclocking, and, if you like, the poll results themselves. Thanks! Justin

I personally think that we the overclockers find it fun just to see how much more we can safely squeeze out of a computer without any negative side effects. I think we get an adreniline shot from it as well, wondering if the system will come out of it alive or come out of it in smoke. I was literally afraid the first time a overclocked a computer, which was my 1.75 GHz Sempron, which is alive and well today. It was about 3 years ago, back when the computer was new. I used Gigabyte Technology's EasyTune 4 program, which is the only way to overclock this computer. The CPU multiplier is fixed at 10.4, so I had to overclock by increasing the system bus speed. MHz by MHz I went, until the *then* 180 MHz system bus was now running at 202 Mhz, and the 1.75 GHz CPU was running at 2.1 GHz! I did notice a speed increase, but the system was unstable. I now, however, have it running very stable at 2.0 GHz. Another virtue of overclocking - why performance increase, of course! (Under certain circumstances.) I don't know if you would call this an overclock, but I recently found out that my old Compaq Presario was running with the system bus at 90 MHz. The CPU is meant for 450 MHz, but at a 4.5 multi, it was running at 405 MHz. Changed the system bus jumpers to 100 MHz, works like a charm. 100 MHz is the highest setting, though, and the system won't boot at anything past 4.5 multi. "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving may not be for you." -Our tour guide at Fenway Park in Boston, MA.

The first CPU I overclocked was a 66MHz 486 DX2. Took it to 80MHz by running the bus at 40MHz. After upgrading to Windows 95, however, I had to take the CPU back to 66MHz. DOS/WfW 3.11 seemed to be fine with the higher bus speed, but Win 95 would freeze every day. As for my modern systems, I've overclocked three of them: Dual core Opteron 185 (2.6GHz), overclocked to 3.2GHz. Pentium M 780 (2.26GHz), overclocked to 2.82GHz. Pentium III-S (1.4GHz), overclocked to 1.66GHz. I've also overclocked the machines' videocards. I've always enjoyed overclocking. The free CPU performance is always nice. I did destroy a Tualeron by giving it way too much voltage, but I've learned my lesson and haven't seen any magic smoke since. :P C2D performance from Socket 939: Opty 185 @ 3.2GHz 4GB CL2 DDR400 2x 8800GTS in SLI X-Fi Titanium Pro PCI-E Blu-Ray A8N32-SLI Deluxe Vista 64 24" Samsung

Overclocked many a computer. My first overclock was taking a P75 to 100MHz. After that I've been overclocking everything that can be overclocked. I overclocked a 2MB PCI S3 Trio 64V+ once before too and managed to play Half Life 1. I have plans to overclock my Sega Mega Drive II (AKA Sega Genesis) from 7MHz to 10MHz to make slowdown disappear when playing 2 player Sonic 2. Mattwizz3 Gigabyte P35-DS3R E4500 @ 3.2 4GB DDR2 800 9800GT

Overclock a game system...hmm, thats interesting! If you do it, Mattwizz3, let us know of the results! How do you do it, anyway? "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving may not be for you." -Our tour guide at Fenway Park in Boston, MA.

Look towards the bottom of the guide here: http://epicgaming.us/?p=4 Its pretty easy, you find the clock input of the main processor and put on an oscillator of the same MHZ that you want. Apparently you can do it for alot of the old consoles like the NES, Master system and even the gameboy. The Mega Drive has a Motorola 68000 processor and apparently people have overclocked it as high as 25MHz. I'm going for 10MHz because the higher you go the more you get distorted sound in some games. The guide there is for overclocking a model 1 Mega Drive/Genesis so I have to figure out how to do it on the Model 2 but its the same idea so shouldn't be too hard. It would be interesting overclocking the NES, as it runs at around 1.7MHz. Mattwizz3 Gigabyte P35-DS3R E4500 @ 3.2 4GB DDR2 800 9800GT

I have been OC'ing systems for quite some time. I am a bit over cautious at it because in most cases it is for a customer and I really don't wish to replace some chip that I blew up by taking it to the limits.( it is a personal thing) The first was an old P75 as well. I went to pass 100mhz when it went nuts on me and so I backed it back down to only 95mhz and it ran like a dream. After that all my friends came to me wanting to show them how to OC their slow systems to gamers or what they thought were such...I was able to convince most that more Ram would show them better performance and an upgrade in Graphics as well. I still run a tad bit of OC'ing to custom builds for my customers and myself. I prefer to use software programs like Ntune and overdrive...this way there is no problems with a customer having to restore his computer and having all the BIOS settings to change out! In reference to 11/05/2008 "So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause." - George Lucas