Overclocking processors

Yes you can but you have to know what you're doing. Overclocking(OC) will increase the heat output of the processor and could make your system unstable if you go too far. It may also shorten the life of your processor. If done correctly, it can give you higher performance but like so many things in life, nothings comes for free. 🙂

Can you overclock any proccessor or just higher end ones.

How is it done though?

I can't give you the how but I think it's done on the motherboard. Certain processors are easier to overclock than others. It really comes down to the motherboard. More advanced motherboards have features that make OC easier or even possible. It's not for armatures, you could ruin you processor and/or motherboard if you don't know what you're doing. Some custom made computer companies will OC your system when you buy a system. Some will warranty the system after OC and some will not. Many OC systems use water cooling or extra big cooling fans and lots of them. I would take it to a computer repair place and get them to do it, they can tell exactly whats possible with your system.

Guys to answer your question, most processors can be overclocked to a certain degree. You have to have a motherboard that has features in the boards BIOS to overclock. You have to have a understanding about how to overclock and what key adjustments are safely required to achieve this. You have a multiplier, stepping, volatage adjustments etc. To be honest with you increasing the processor frequency by a couple of hundred does not give you an effective edge. It takes much more than that. I recommend staying away from it. I gave it up along time ago. Run everything at default no issues.

You can damage your cpu,motherboar, corrupt windows is a major one and then you have to start over installing the OS.

Stay away if you don't know what you are doing.

AstroSteve

A great beginner's guide for overclocking CPUs & GPUs (Graphic Processing Unit), including expectations, limitations & warnings can be found at the links below.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1804

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1803

I have a fairly new Nvidia graphics card...and didn't really see the point in overclocking a new card, but I was able to squeeze quite a bit more out of it by overclocking it & I was very happy with the improvement (especially when it comes to FSX).

Both Nvidia & ATI cards have the ability to overclock already built in (it's called Coolbits in Nvidia). I prefer the RivaTuner for overclocking and it works with both ATI & Nvidia.

http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=163

Just be careful, even though modern graphic cards have overclocking built in, pay attention to the warnings...especially about overheating.

Probelms go here.

http://www.ocforums.com/