Gamers who are also hardware geeks always debate about the pros and cons of CPU overclocking. In this post, we will take an in-depth look at CPU overclocking and is it something you should do?
Let us start from the very basic question.
What is Overclocking?
Overclocking, in simple words, is a method of increasing the clock speed of the CPU beyond the original clock speed to obtain more performance. When the processor is provided with more Volts, the computation capabilities increases automatically.
For gaming motherboards, overclocking becomes much easier as the manufacturers already provide a dedicated option in the BIOS for the same. So, you would not require any extra hardware or software.
Overclocking is not recommended for normal users. It is only meant for gamers and software benchmarking etc.
Pros of Overclocking
Technically speaking, the only direct benefit of overclocking is better performance. That’s why PC enthusiasts overclock the CPU and even GPU.
But, with this extra performance boost, all other things get benefited like games, video processing, audio processing and even the normal tasks take a lot less time to execute.
For gamers, the benefit is that they get an extra edge over their competitors who are running non-overclocked builds.
For people who do software and hardware benchmarking, they generally overclock the hardware to find out the peak performance of the component being tested.
Cons of Overclocking
The biggest problem with overclocking is that it significantly reduces the lifespan of the component if the overclocking is done for a longer period.
The damage is done due to extra heat generated when the power is increased. The components like CPU, GPU, RAM etc are not capable of sustaining this additional heat for long time. Thus, they get degraded over time.
Another disadvantage of overclocking is the heat-related issues that may occur in the OS. Most of the time, when the PC gets overheated, the operating system crashes and you are at the risk of losing data.
In rare cases, overheating due to overclocking can irreparably damage the components.
To counter this issue, most PC builders use the best thermal paste, a high quality heat sink, better CPU coolers so that this extra heat can probably be handled properly.
Some overclocked builds even use water cooling systems instead of the regular air cooling.
In my opinion, overclocking is clearly not everyone’s cup of tea. It is something to be done with ultimate precaution and precision otherwise you will end with a fired up PC (literally!). But, when done right, overclocking can give you that extra performance boost you always wanted!