Overclocking Hardware Components

Overclocking, is increasing a hardware components performance manually, to its full potential. This is often done to graphic cards and processors, and often results in considerably increased computer performance. The reason overclocking is possible, is because hardware manufacturers program their hardware to run at a safer level, below its full potential, to ensure there is less of a chance of that component failing. Take an elevator for example. Say it has maximum capacity of 20 people. The elevator company will post on the inside something like "maximum 17 people". Now it's true, the elevator could probably hold 3 more people, as it's rated to do so. However, just to be safe, they ensure that the maximum is never reached, so there is less chance of something bad occuring. It is the same with hardware. Overclocking causes the hardware to run at its maximum settings, increasing performance, but also increasing potential failure. Overclocking often voids one's warranty, however new gaming desktops and notebooks are being released with factory overclocked GPU's and processors, whic means that the overclocked components will be under warranty.

One again, feel free to challenge.

 

actually, manufactures set specific clock rates by yield

let say the 8600gt

if you set the clocks at 300/300, then 99.99% of cards will work at that level

let say you set cards at 400/400 then maybe 90% of cards will work

nvidia just manufactures a boat load of cards, then test their capbabilities

they set aside 8600gt cards that can be clocked very high and name it the 8700m. the rest of the 8600gt is set at 475/800 because that is the clock that will give the best card yield: performance level

this is why some cards OC better than others and OC capability is luck of the draw

 

yes, so in the case of a 8600 gt overclocked to become an 8700, it can tend to be less reliable, however, it is an overclocked component on warranty

 

it isn't less reliable

its just that nvidia renames the 8600gt can be clocked higher and still run stable 8700

 

so then you could overclock the stable 8700 and start a whole new breed of direct x 10 cards

 

Well the overclocking headroom is not the same at the 8700 as the 8600..
The 8700 is near the top...

Anyway,as you can see from the desktop brothers,8600GT is a chip that can get extremely overclocked.
The problem with the mobile ones,is that they get very hot..

 

even if the 8600gt (desktop) can OC like mad, its still pretty crappy

i still can't get over the fact that nvidia would give this card 128 bit

= crap performance at high res or anything with AA

anything but higher than a 8800gts 320mb is not worth upgrading for dx10