FEATURED Modern Overclockers, Modern Overclocking... What does it mean to you?

[I.M.O.G.]

I think thats actually one of the strengths here... If you look around enthusiast forums, there are a lot of people who don't know what they are talking about. Our discussion quality and accuracy is well above par, mainly because we have good people here leading the misled in the right direction.

 

[Archer0915]

Here there is backup in the form of a lot of good members, moderation and administration but in some of the other places people are just allowed to spew crap with impunity. The crappers here and at a couple of other places usually get a response that increases in strength up to calling in a mod. The real problems arise when they don't get caught. I know some seniors and the mods lurk many times just to keep order and it generally works.

The question was what does modern overclocking mean to me and the fact is this is not the only place on the web and there is a lot of poison out there. That is why I formulated my response as such.

 

[OptyTrooper]

Modern overclocking seems to be all about who has the most dough instead who has the most skill. Bin 100 chips, a few different boards, 20 sets of RAM, 10 cards or so, grab your 20 globals and proclaim yourself an "overclocker".

Pushing your 2600K to 5.0Ghz with a push of a key is overclocking in name only.

 

[Archer0915]

Well I had a great reply but I had a power outage Lost it.

When I get time I will try again.

 

[madhatter256]

I remember when overclocking was more for necessity than it was for competition or pushing things to the extreme.

My VERY first overclock was a Pentium Pro 200mhz w/ 1mb L2 Cache in a Compaq Deskpro 6000.

It was my first PC and I had it when Diablo 2 came out. Diablo 2 didn't run so well because it required a 233mhz MMX cpu, which the PPro was not.

I did some research and found that my PC had dipswitches (remember those?) and luckily my board had a diagram on what FSB you'll get on certain configurations.

I got my CPU to OC to 233mhz exactly and Diablo 2 ran much better than before.

Then when I got a job I set out to build a PC I can overclock. I bought an nForce2 motherboard and I was hooked on PCs since then.

I will admit that nForce 2 did make it easier to OC cpus, and from then on out, manufacturers made it easier to OC cpus.

A lot of the old guys will agree that people nowadays have it easier to OC cpus than before the Pentium 3 days. Back then I remember seeing motherboard with wires soldered, and other electronic gizmos soldered onto the board to push a higher voltage. Those were the wild west days, nowadays it is about buying the high-end stuff to get a decent OC. You don't see that type of modification anymore, not even in the extreme OC.

 

[stool]

Gotta agree. After I started playing with hardware in the 90's, it led me here and to other OC sites, but here is the only place where it seems to me that civility has been a key, rather than the flaming and crap like at some other sites.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

A lot of the old guys will agree that people nowadays have it easier to OC cpus than before the Pentium 3 days. Back then I remember seeing motherboard with wires soldered, and other electronic gizmos soldered onto the board to push a higher voltage. Those were the wild west days, nowadays it is about buying the high-end stuff to get a decent OC. You don't see that type of modification anymore, not even in the extreme OC.

Extreme guys do a decent amount of voltmodding on GPUs, so it depends somewhat on where you look. On motherboards its even more rare, but I've heard of people wiring on additional power connections to send more juice to the PCI Express slots themselves and keep the stock power lanes on the board from melting when benching multi-gpu setups. (On AMD rigs)

Your point is a good one though, and its not like in the past when hardware mods were required for many basic types of overclocks. There isn't a lot of the old school stuff, and what there is, has been catered to and simplified - the hardware is getting out of our way, and makes it much easier to get right to the settings. The May HWBOT competition was a good one for that though, and OCF is winning it... Its a dual socket competition, and Optytrooper knows a lot of old school dual socket tricks that aren't well known.

All that said, I've had a great time overclocking on AM3 recently. But what good is it? Fun for benching as a hobby. I run my HTPC with a 965BE and a mild overclock with an undervolt. I was glad that was quick and easy - the PCs I actually use to do stuff with, I don't want them flaking out. The benching rigs are just for fun, and you can try a lot more crazy stuff because you don't need them to actually do anything... I like that side of things.

 

[Archer0915]

Well I don't want to call it dumbing down of the sport it is actually making it easier to expand the fan base of the non OEM following. I don't mind so much having to not do some of the things I have done in the past. I think the ones being hurt more and more every year are the OEMs.

 

[stool]

I always look back on when I started, and although I always had a sense of triumph when I overcame a problem, I don't know if I'd be willing to do the same thing today(by that, I mean frying components, buying cutting edge, etc...). My interest in computers still exists, but now in different directions. As I mentioned above, I'm trying to learn servers, but at the same time I'm doing SFF stuff, learning to repair laptops, netbooks and the like too. I guess I'm trying to say that the real challenge for me from OC'ing is gone, so I'm trying to move to stuff that challenges me.

 

[OptyTrooper]

The reason I bench legacy stuff is not b/c can't afford it but rather b/c I refuse to afford it. No 200 dollar boards with a 300 chip that overclocks by pushing a few keys. No sir not this overclocker!

I've likely spent enough on legacy hardware this year to have purchased several of the latest and greatest but no thanks.

 

[Archer0915]

The reason I bench legacy stuff is not b/c can't afford it but rather b/c I refuse to afford it. No 200 dollar boards with a 300 chip that overclocks by pushing a few keys. No sir not this overclocker!

I've likely spent enough on legacy hardware this year to have purchased several of the latest and greatest but no thanks.

well said. Now I am inspired to go out to the shop and OC some PII-III-IIII stuff and some K6-2-Athlon stuff.

 

[OptyTrooper]

well said. Now I am inspired to go out to the shop and OC some PII-III-IIII stuff and some K6-2-Athlon stuff.

If you don't your a .

 

[Bobnova]

You can still find more classic style OCing.
I've been doing a lot of soldering on GPUs lately to give voltage control, I've been talking to another member advising on soldering on a mobo to give more voltage control.
There's far less of that than in times past, but it's still around.
You just have to go to the very top of things to get it.