Question for you overclockers

[BaldEagl]

I have found that a machine will run better and more stable if it just runs cooler. like below 70 degrees or so.

Most people think just hyping up the CPU is overclocking and it's not. Video cards and the bus system also need to be streamlined to accomplish a true overclocking.

I used to overclock machines years ago.  I found that the difference in what the eye perceives as a change is a lot of times non-existant. IMO, if you need a meter\benchmark test to determine any real change it probably wasn't worth the extra heat added. If your eye can't tell the difference, what was the point?

Again I refer back to a cooler machine will run better and more stable. IMO stability is more important then speed with errors. I have since personally declaired overclocking as over-rated and a false positive. IMO, streamline bus systems, a good match in hardware, performance tweaks and a cooler running machine is more productive then overclocking.

But that's just me. To each their own. Just adding another thought to consider.

  <S>

I've tested Prime95 at 100% load on both cores of my CPU both before and after overclocking from 2.66 Ghz to 3.2 Ghz and gained ~ 15% in time to run 5 dual threads (on a 20% OC) with temps raised by only a few degrees.  I've run much longer tests with Prime95 reporting no errors.

I agree cooler is better but if temps are close then it's not a problem.  Achieving stability is simply a matter of getting the voltage to the CPU right for the amount of OC, and of course, the lower the better.

Of course, if your're clocking the CPU bus speed above the RAM bus speed, then you're also probably not gaining much.

[Getback]

Go ahead and make fun of me. You guys should see what I see. The difference between 3.0 and 3.8 is astounding. If there is a micro warp it's corrected instantly. Planes don't jump in the distance although they look like a heard of 163s which is scary. My Kill hit % has improved vastly. It use to be around 4 - 5% and is now as high as 9%. Yeah I know that's no record but it is a about 100% improvement at times. I think it's currently at .666% (That's scary too)

My computer at idle is about 36c and at full bore about 55c. I,m willing to bet that is what they use to run without overclocking.

[Animl]

Go ahead and make fun of me. You guys should see what I see. The difference between 3.0 and 3.8 is astounding. If there is a micro warp it's corrected instantly. Planes don't jump in the distance although they look like a heard of 163s which is scary. My Kill hit % has improved vastly. It use to be around 4 - 5% and is now as high as 9%. Yeah I know that's no record but it is a about 100% improvement at times. I think it's currently at .666% (That's scary too)

My computer at idle is about 36c and at full bore about 55c. I,m willing to bet that is what they use to run without overclocking.

I'm not making fun of anyone. As I said, to each their own.

I don't understand how going from a 3.0 (I have a P4 3.0) to a 3.8 improves kill ratios. My 3.0 runs the game like melted butter. Using a 1gb memory, and a nvidia GT6800 256mb

Personally I'd be looking for the bottlenecks in the system such as machine latency at some point or another. I personally don't see it being attributed to the CPU itself. Why do *I* say this, because to *ME* something stopping and starting or moving differently in a game seems to tell me there is a bottleneck whether in the bus system, or simply services or processes running that suddenly hog resources and\or priority.

I GUESS my point is, and it's not in the bible it's just my POV,... overclocking does no real good if there are other bottlenecks and high latencies causing the issues, it's more a band-aid by simply speeding it up rather then removing the clog.

It's just my opinion, a little educated one at that but it's just a personal opinion. I guess what I am trying to is to provoke you into looking deeper into the system bottlenecks and the OS rather then just leeping to OC and thinking that will solve everything. BIOS settings such as video bios shadowing, AGP Aperture etc... and that depends on the Vid card you are using. It's not just bus speeds and voltages. I enabled hardware vertex processing and it seems to have doubled my fps, I'm alost always at 50-80 fps with a;; graphics in the game full tilt.

Don't be offended because I may disagree on overclocking. If you're getting great results with no harm being done then go for it. But from what I read you have an extra backup CPU so you may be willing to go further with it then some who don't. I'm afraid someone will go as far as you are willing to and end up buying a new CPU. <shrug> again that's just me <S>

[Animl]

I've tested Prime95 at 100% load on both cores of my CPU both before and after overclocking from 2.66 Ghz to 3.2 Ghz and gained ~ 15% in time to run 5 dual threads (on a 20% OC) with temps raised by only a few degrees.  I've run much longer tests with Prime95 reporting no errors.

I agree cooler is better but if temps are close then it's not a problem.  Achieving stability is simply a matter of getting the voltage to the CPU right for the amount of OC, and of course, the lower the better.

Of course, if your're clocking the CPU bus speed above the RAM bus speed, then you're also probably not gaining much.

Yes I am well aware of how to OC.
That's not what I read in earlier post about heat. <shrug> Did you implement a high performance cooler of any kind? If so you still got the heat you just found a way to keep it down.

You can also Mod some cards for more speed but I also don't suggest that either. Again that's just me and my own opinion.

[BaldEagl]

Here's my opinion on it for what it's worth:

Intel has built a lot of overhead into their current processors to attract the computer "enthusiasts" (i.e. hard core gamers).  That overhead BEGS you to OC the Intel Core2Duo and Quad Core processors.  Most of these can be overclocked by 0.5 Ghz on stock air to 1.0 Ghz on aftermarket cooling.  That's a nice gain for no additional cost.

If you can bring your system bus speeds in-line (CPU and RAM busses) without significant temparature gains, it's like getting your car tuned up.  Going from a 1333 FSB to 1600 (in my case) to sync my DDR2 800 RAM @ 1:1 is a mild and worthy OC.  To try to go higher with that RAM wouldn't produce a significant benefit.  To install even faster RAM and try to sync with it begins to approach the danger zone IMO and starts to potentially create other complications (and expenses).

I'm not a fan of pushing it as far as it can go, but rather taking advantage of a built-in (purposly designed in) benefit to get the best performance possible from my system without a significant degradation in lifespan.

Just my opinion.

[Getback]

As far as I know I don't have any bottlenecking. My FSB matches my ram. It is actually a very very smooth machine.