Friday, December 10, 2010

Speed Up PC Performance - Overclocking CPU

Overclocking





How to achieve Overclocking?

Overclocking can be achieved in two ways:
  • by modifying the multiplier coefficient (the motherboard will not experience any change in frequency, only the processor will run at a higher speed)
  • by modifying the base frequency, in other words, the motherboard's frequency (the processor will then also experience an increase in frequency proportional to the multiplier coefficient).

The possible frequencies for the motherboard depend on the type of motherboard (a recent motherboard will obviously be capable of higher frequencies), but will be one of the following:
  • 50MHz
  • 60MHz
  • 66MHz
  • 75MHz
  • 83MHz
  • 100MHz
  • and higher...
Which type of overclocking should you choose?

As mentioned above, there are two main ways of overclocking your system.
  • overclocking the processor only
  • overclocking the motherboard and all its components

The frequency of a PCI-type bus, for example, is linked to the motherboard frequency by a coefficient of 0.5, which means that with a motherboard operating at 66MHz the PCI bus will have a frequency of 33MHz. So increasing the base frequency of the motherboard will have, as a direct consequence, a proportional increase in the frequency of the PCI bus, in other words on all the components that are attached to it.

It is therefore better to increase the motherboard than the multiplier coefficient. Lets look at an example: a Pentium 166 with a base frequency of 83MHz and a multiplier coefficient of 2 (2x83=166) will have better performance than a Pentium 200 with a base frequency of 66MHz and a multiplier coefficient of 3 (3x66=200). What happens is that certain components play the role of a brake, in that the processor "waits" until they have completed their operations before it continues with its own!

Cooling and Aeration

As soon as you start overclocking, the temperature of the overclocked components becomes significantly higher, which could be harmful to them. A processor is normally tested to withstand a temperature on the order of 80°C, beyond which damage may be irreversible. That is why you can never talk about overclocking without also talking about cooling and aeration. A processor is usually cooled by a special-purpose fan. It is not, however, the only element that suffers from the overheating associated with overclocking: chipsets, memory modules, and voltage regulators must also be cooled.

Which cooling systems should you use?

The system most commonly used is a fan mounted on a heat sink (a heat sink is a metal plate with small fins that improves the heat exchange between the processor on which it is mounted and the ambient air). The fan can also be mounted directly on the processor, but the cooling will not be as effective; sometimes a small metal plate inserted between the fan and the processor can help to dissipate the processor heat. The fan must be as large as possible to allow major air movement which will also contribute to the ventilation of the case.

Some overclocking aficionados use a (silicon-type, heat-)conductive paste between the processor and the fan to achieve the best possible heat exchange. There are also fans that are equipped with an alarm (connected to the speaker of your computer) which will sound if the fan breaks down. In fact, a fan failure can directly cause the death of your processor. This type of fan is therefore recommended if you are severely overclocking your processor.

Finally, there are components designed to provide excellent cooling: these are Peltier effect plates, which act like a heat pump, by significantly lowering the temperature on one side (the processor side), but heating the other side, which must be cooled by a fan. This type of system is recommended for overclocking!

Aeration is also very important as it is air movement inside the case that makes it possible to evacuate the heat (transferred to the air from the components). For this reason, a well-arranged case minimises obstacles to ventilation.

In addition, the hard drive is also sensitive to excessive heat increases, so you must make sure that you don't locate it in a confined part of the case; instead it should be in an area where it will benefit from fan airflow.

3 comments:

Is there any disadvantage of overclocking CPU's ?

Also when you do Overclocking lot of Heat will be produced and it might damage add on cards like SoundCard, Graphics Card. So its always better to have more cooling devices when you are doing overclocking.

Yes, overclocking results a lot of pressure on processor which effects your other hardware devices some times.

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