Thread: AMD phenom quad cores....

Overclocking is fun, I have OCed most of my systems for fun at one point or another. Hell, this 5600+ has pushed 3.2ghz on air.

But my point is: OCing, regardless of stability, shortens your hardware's lifespan, voids warrantys, risks immediate damage to a number of components. However, many of todays newer computers can play every game out there with all the settings completely jacked up. Oblivion gives me some chunkiness when I turn it up, and so does Crysis, but other than that I never have *any* problems with framerate and all the eye candy I could want. I say OCing is Overrated because many people, especially those who do it, dont need to; period.

I have never had anything break from OCing, I have friends who have and have read many horror stories. If you aint gettin' the jaggies, why risk it?

From the view of a science, math and engineering nerd, I love to OC a new system and see what I can get it to do; but my stock 10700+ 3dmarks is more than enough to game on today, thus, I have no need to overclock.

Originally Posted by sfg-Groove

If you think over clocking is overrated then I encourage you to join www.blazingpc.com and hang out with some world record setting overclockers. And you might even learn a little something along the way

I bet BF2 looks the same on my machine as it does on those machines, as does NWN2, Civ 4, CoD 4, etc.

700 bucks will get you 10k 3dmarks with no OC and no risk.

Originally Posted by sfg-Groove

When I went from my x2 3800 @ 3.0ghz to what I have now I noticed a HUGE improvement in how all of my games run..

For all my ranting I must admit, when I was using my 939 I had a 3500+ and I always gamed with it OCed... until I got an 8800 GTS 640 instead of SLI 6600 GTs... It did make a world of difference to be at ~2.6ish Ghz instead of 2.2, but the 8800 changed that... My proc didnt make a hill of beans worth of difference until I got an FX-60 (Dual Core, 2x1mb L2 Cache, 2.6Ghz, 939.. your welcome Deus!) and that proc helped a bit... but now I am babbling and waxing nostalgic. Yeah, a slow proc will benefit from OC. But also, consider that a slow proc was selected from a batch to be a slow proc because it was unstable at higher speeds!

Originally Posted by sfg-Groove

And by shorting the life span of the cpu.. You might be taking a few months of the chips 5 year life expectancy .. and who keeps a cpu for 5 years any how?

Actually, you can cut the lifespan of a chip in half or less if you OC it hard enough and drive the temperatures up to barely safe levels. And what shorter of a lifespan is there than "oh snap, I just fried my brand new 280 dollar E7850!" As far as keeping a chip for a long time, I kept my XP 1900+ gaming system up and running for 4 years; until I bought BF2 and that GeForce 3 wouldnt do it anymore. I still have several computers running I built for people using pentium III, IIII and AMD XP series chips. Many people dont want to upgrade every 6 months to a year. I do, I am sure you do, and many reading this do, but there are people who play games on laptops or home systems that were never designed for it and do it for years. What can they afford?

Originally Posted by sfg-Groove

if you are a stocker get the phenom if you are an overlcocker get the Intel.

That statement I do agree with; I just think the desire to OC has little to do with need... except in the case of low performance CPUs. But those chips, as mentioned previously, are low performance for a reason.


In the very end; I am excited to see AMD offering a product that competes with Intel again. Too little too late? I hope not...

Originally Posted by sfg-Groove

But also, consider that a slow proc was selected from a batch to be a slow proc because it was unstable at higher speeds!

If that holds true then how is my 1.8ghz chip been running at 3.2 for 8 months now?
Stock voltage is 1.325 and I need 1.375 to get 3.2ghz.. which is nothing.. It will never hurt it.
And I mean 24 hours of orthos small fft stable.

Luck of the draw; maybe your 1.8Ghz CPU was not on the margin when it was being tested probably, AND you know what you are doing. But 8 months is not even helf of five years. It is hurting it; using a processor at all hurts it, you are just increasing the rate of hurting which decreases it's lifespan.

But I have seen people, do all the right things, and immediately cook there low end proc because they had bad luck. It happens.

Originally Posted by sfg-Groove

And the x2 3800 ran at 3.0ghz for over a year. That is a 1000mhz over clock. Thats the thing I know how to properly go about finding how much voltage it needs to be stable and not run overly hot. With a decent after market cooler and paste you can achieve this very easily.

See, the thing is, each time a bit is flipped it deteriorates slightly. If your CPU is expected to last 5 years doing 1800000000 cycles per second. In the end, pushing 1800000000 bit flips to 3200000000 increases the deterioration by that amount, regardless of heat. High heat increases the rate of deterioration, but there is always some deterioration. So, when increasing from 1.8 to 3.2, a 43.75% increase in the rate at which the bits flip (number of cycles per second) you are potentially reducing the lifespan of the CPU by 43.75% at the base safe temperature. It is working almost twice as hard as it was tested at; and their tests rate it for a certain lifespan at a specific number of cycles in a specific temperature range.

Sure, through voltage control and nice cooling systems, you can maintain the specific temperature range at higher cycles per second, but you are still increasing the rate at which the CPU works. Doing this shortens it's lifespan; period. Increasing the heat, increases the rate of deterioration, but there is still deterioration at any temperature. Just because your system is stable and operating well under OC, does not mean you have not shortened the Chipset's, RAM's and CPU's lifespan as well as voided your warranties.

Just reitterating: OCing is fun and a learning experience, but is not necessary and has big negatives associated with it. Reduction of lifespan, potential for immediate breakage, potential for instability, and voiding warranties are all problems with being able to say "I have 14000 3dmarks!"

Originally Posted by sfg-Groove

I can run Oblivion maxed out with the high res texture pack 1600x1200 and my fps is 50 to 65
Try that with that amd j/k

Just did it.. sort of.

All Video settings from the in game menu on and maxed including HDR and overriding (applying AA to all surfaces not just application selected) the AA setting via hardware control to enable HDR and AA simultaneously running at 1600x1200:

With AFR2 and no AA did 40 to 85 FPS.
With Single GPU mode and no AA did 35 to 65 fps.
With AFR2 and 4xAA did 40 to 65 fps.
With Single GPU and 4xAA 25 to 60 fps.

Not bad for a stock 2.8Ghz processor... But I still cant turn up the AA too high. Cant wait for the Phenoms to hit the 2.8Ghz region; then I might have to upgrade.