Is overclocking worth it?

[Cheezeit]

Well after hanging around in this section of the forum a bit, I'm really considering overclocking my rig after seeing the great guide and all your cool threads.

I don't know much about ocing at all, but I want to weigh the risks against benefits before attempting to, so here are a few questions.

I know ocing will shorten the life of a CPU 5 or so years and void the warrenty, but then how long will it last? So how long will an oc'ed processor last?

Can you really see a perfromance benefit after ocing? Let's say I got an average OC. Would I really be able to see a prefromace increase and speed increase or is it more about bragging rights?

What would sufficient cooling for an Oc'ed computer be? (just for an average OC)

Concerning parts:
AMD a64 3000+ venice, step E
DFI NF4 Ultra-D
Corsair VS 2x512
Antec p-160 with one intake fan (120mm)
Fortron Blue Strom 500 PSU (as exhaust)

So could you guys maybe hit a few of the questions I asked and answer the big "is it worth it" along with any other hazards?

Thanks a bunch in advance,
Darren

 

[Shenkoa]

It all depends on your needs really, overclocking with the Venice is a rewarding experience most of the time. You could get a good 30% performance increase at least with that chip and the performance gain would be noticeable.

As far as life goes, with overclocking there is no garantee to how long it will last. But most of the time the CPU still has a life expectancy that is well over the time in which you will have the chip. Results and dangers usually depends on the chip, the Venice core is designed to reach upwards of 2800 MHz so I think you would be fine.

Worth overclocking IMO, especially with that MOBO.

 

[unprecedented]

Im curious at to why you have that mobo if your not really keen on OCing, IMO that board is an OCers best friend.

I reckon you should have a crack at OCing, i OCed yesterday and i got an extra 440 MHz with stock cooling... I reckon i would have got more, but my mobo (Asus A8V-E Deluxe) wont boot past 265 HTT.
Im running an A64 3500 Venice, went from 2200 to 2640 and i can see a BIG performance diff. 3D and PC mark scores have gone up a fair bit! So have a look at Zebo's Quick and Dirty guide to OCing and GOOD LUCK!

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: Shenkoa
It all depends on your needs really, overclocking with the Venice is a rewarding experience most of the time. You could get a good 30% performance increase at least with that chip and the performance gain would be noticeable.

As far as life goes, with overclocking there is no garantee to how long it will last. But most of the time the CPU still has a life expectancy that is well over the time in which you will have the chip. Results and dangers usually depends on the chip, the Venice core is designed to reach upwards of 2800 MHz so I think you would be fine.

Worth overclocking IMO, especially with that MOBO.

Thanks for the very helpful reply

Yeah, I had overclocking in mind when I built my rig a while ago, just never gathered the balls to do it. The 3000+ is at 1800mhz, how many mhz do you guys think an average guy hits with that chip?

Was kind of worried about my ram holding me back, how much will that value select hinder me?

From what i've seen in people's sigs, the stock AMD cooler should be fine for average, right?

It all seems pretty confusing to me right now, with the words and anangrams I have no idea about lol.

 

[Cheezeit]

Originally posted by: unprecedented
Im curious at to why you have that mobo if your not really keen on OCing, IMO that board is an OCers best friend.

I reckon you should have a crack at OCing, i OCed yesterday and i got an extra 440 MHz with stock cooling... I reckon i would have got more, but my mobo (Asus A8V-E Deluxe) wont boot past 265 HTT.
Im running an A64 3500 Venice, went from 2200 to 2640 and i can see a BIG performance diff. 3D and PC mark scores have gone up a fair bit! So have a look at Zebo's Quick and Dirty guide to OCing and GOOD LUCK!

I think I'm gonna take a shot at it for sure, just hope I don't brun anything out

As I've said in my previous post, I designed my rig with OC in mind, just didn't have the balls yet.

Gonna go study over zebo's guide, and thanks!

 

[Nirach]

The only thing I overclock is my graphics card. I've never overclocked any other componant, and well, so far I've been able to play the games I wanted to..

I don't like the consequences, albeit possible not definate, of overclocking. The idea of shelling out for replacements doesn't appeal to me at all.

Depends on what you want to do, and if it'd be worth risking spending the money twice if it goes that badly wrong or if it'd be worth hanging on for a while and getting the better parts.

 

[firewolfsm]

a modest OC for venice is up to 2.4GHz (267 x 9 for you), if you want to be really safe, you should be able to do that w/o a voltage increase

...i think

 

[unprecedented]

If you do it in nice easy increment you shouldn't go burning out ur comp. Follow Zebo's guide and ur in

 

[BlueFlamme]

It also depends on how you use your computer. If you do not have performance issues at all then there is no need to OC. In the future when something new comes out that your system can't keep up with, you can always OC at that time to delay the future replacement system.

From the OP I understood the concern was not destroying the parts in the OC attempt, it was that they'll die 3-6 years from now instead of 12 years from now. Everyone has a different opinions as to when is a reasonable time to retire a processor.

 

[PingSpike]

Heat, voltage and running time I think all play a role in the length of a chips life. The trouble with computer components is that they become obsolete so fast that there aren't exactly any long term studies available regarding the length of a particular chips life when overclocking versus control. The results of this kind of study would be useless by the time they came out.

Overclocking is of course a risk...but I think that personally the risks are greatly overexaggerated by some. I've never actually heard some one say that simply increasing the clock speed flat out killed their chip. Usually you purchase a low end model later in the cores life cycle, and ramp it up to the speeds of the higher end chips. Some people go beyond this...but often the chip is still performing within the range it was designed for...albeit, sometimes with more voltage. In the case of venice based cores, I haven't even needed a voltage increase which was a very pleasent surprise for me. (My target was a conservative 2300 out of my venice...I'm hovering at ~2450 and have decided I have no need to go higher)

As BlueFlamme points out...even if the life of a chip is cut in half or even more...will that matter? Think of what you were using 3 years ago...and think how much an equivelent replacement part would cost now. If you want to keep the same machine, without upgrading for a long time...the potential risks may not be worth it to you. Most components fail early on, or well after they have become to old to be useful...at least electronic ones like processors anyway.

 

[imported_rod]

Overclocking a new chip will basically have no effect on gaming. Most games are limited by video cards, unless your running powerful cards at low resolutions (but would you run a 7800GTX at 800x600).

Also, i posted this about life span just today:

Voltage and heat both shorten a chips life - I'm not sure which is worse though.

But maluckey has mentioned the important fact. If you consider a CPU under normal regular useage has a life span of about 10 years, then an OCed chip may only last 8 years. But is anyone in the year 2014 going to want an Athlon64???

RoD

 

[nealh]

I have overclocked for 6-7yrs...I have sold my old components and no one has ever come back and siad they failed unexpectedly..there is always a risk but if you are careful...not overly aggessive...10-15 increase in vcore seems safe for most chips....are you keeping the chip for 5yrs? I doubt it

I would try to see what you get a default vcore..that is free speed increase and there should be 0 risk

 

[imported_rod]

Originally posted by: nealh
I have overclocked for 6-7yrs...I have sold my old components and no one has ever come back and siad they failed unexpectedly..there is always a risk but if you are careful...not overly aggessive...10-15 increase in vcore seems safe for most chips....are you keeping the chip for 5yrs? I doubt it

I would try to see what you get a default vcore..that is free speed increase and there should be 0 risk

Yeah. You can probably get 10%-20% overclock on stock voltage (well, i can get 2.4 at stock voltage with my 3200+ winchester).

RoD

 

[Falloutboy]

my upgrade budgets require me to play the overclock game if I want top level performance, and still afford to eat

my overclocking history:

cely 366@550
cely 500@ I forget but this was a dog and got sold quickly
Duron 600 @ 1ghz
athlon xp 2100 @ 1.9ghz (not the greatest overclock in the world)
Athlon XP Barton Mobile 2400@2.4ghz
and now I got a opty CACJE 144 that i'm playing with when I get home from work (praying for 2.8+ which will make the chip better than an fx57)

getting a proc that runs as fast as the fastest chip on the market, for the price of lowend is defenatly worth the risk (as long as your smart there isn't much risk anyway, never lost a chip to overclocking)

 

[themusgrat]

A Venice will get to 2.4 prob with stock voltage, and as long as its not hot, that will not shorten the life at all. And that is exactly like having a 3800+, so there will be a performance difference. People who say OCing a CPU doesn't do anything don't know squat. I'm not sure that some people understand why OCing is valid, so here's why. When chips are made, AMD or Intel makes every chip of the same core the same way, using the exact same processes. They then separate the chips into bins, depending on what the chips are able to handle (making CPUs is not an exact science, so there is some variation). So the better chips get stuck with a higher speed, the worse ones with a lower speed. Only, almost all AMDs are limited to 2.4-2.6, so the difference between a better and a worse chip is only an artificial barrier, and when you kind of remove that barrier, that is OCing, and as long as you stick with stock volts and decent cooling, there is no possible way to damage a chip by OCing.

 

[AmpedSilence]

I OC'ed my brother's Vience 3000+ to 2.4 Ghz on stock voltages.

The settings i used were

300 HTT x 8 = 2.4 Ghz Core
300 x 4 for the Hyper Transport Link
and the memory divider set to DDR266 or (8/10).

Its rock solid, never gets over 35C on stock cooling.

Give it a try; that basically 600 Mhz worth of speed for free and it does make a difference...

Good Luck!

 

[Cheezeit]

Wow you guys know a ton about this stuff. Thanks for all the great advice! Is there anything else I should know?

 

[Falloutboy]

just read on the forums you'll pick up everything pretty quick

 

[niomosy]

I'm wondering how long some of these oc'd chips last. I've never bothered with oc'ing in the past but I may try a little with the next upgrade. Considering I'll probably have this computer a good 2-3 years then hand it off to the wife for probably another 2-3 years then probably use it for my kid unless it's really underpowered for a 4-6 year old, I'm more concerned with longevity than bumping a bit more speed out of the chip.

 

[Falloutboy]

as long as its not much more than a 10-15% volt hike its unlikely to have issues down the road

 

[Triggerhappy007]

Originally posted by: AmpedSilence
I OC'ed my brother's Vience 3000+ to 2.4 Ghz on stock voltages.

The settings i used were

300 HTT x 8 = 2.4 Ghz Core
300 x 4 for the Hyper Transport Link

1200 for the HTL is too much. Use 300 X 3 instead. You won't notice much speed difference.

 

[imported_Sincity]

I have been overclocking back in the days when AMD made 286s (or was that a 386s since I owned AMD 286 and 386 back then-been so long ago) and we changed out the crystal to a slightly higher frequency one. My current CPU, a AMD 1700+ (rated 133 x 11) has been OC'd to 200 x 10 for over 3 years now running on an average of 5 hours everyday.

I just bought a Winchester 3000+ that I plan a "mild" bump to 2.2 - 2.4. Make sure you have an excellent HS setup. I also bought a Arctic Cooling 64 Freezer PRO for it.

 

[Cheezeit]

So what happens if I just use the Stock AMD cooler? Will it overheat? I have seen alot of people say that they have their oced vennies on the stock cooler..

 

[Allio]

Yeah, the stock cooler is fine. My 3200+ took a decent bump of voltage to get to 2.6ghz and it still tops out at about 46c when the case is properly cooled.

 

[Db2012]

its about getting what you pay for