Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot Com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works in I heart radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And it's a Friday, which means it's
Speaker 1: time for another classic episode. The episode you're about to
Speaker 1: hear originally aired way back on February twelve, two thousand twelve,
Speaker 1: and it's titled Text Stuff over Clocks a CPU. Now,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get this out of the way.
Speaker 1: CPUs have certainly advanced since two thousand twelve, but the
Speaker 1: general principles behind overclocking remained the same. So I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy this discussion that Chris and I have about
Speaker 1: what overclocking is and how it is accomplished and take
Speaker 1: it away old version of me and old version of
Speaker 1: Chris Paulett. Today, to start off our episode, we have
Speaker 1: a little Facebook feedback you be. This comes from Brian
Speaker 1: who says, I've been listening to you guys since almost
Speaker 1: the beginning. Keep up the great work. I was wondering
Speaker 1: if you could do a podcast about overclocking. You can
Speaker 1: talk about what it is, how it works and the
Speaker 1: pros and cons of it. I've had some experience myself
Speaker 1: and can tell you it's well worth it. Can't wait
Speaker 1: to listen to your next podcast. Well, Brian, this one
Speaker 1: goes out to you. And we've talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about over clocking and past episodes, particularly anything where we
Speaker 1: talked about CPUs and clock cycles. But but let's let's
Speaker 1: kind of go back and talk about what a clock
Speaker 1: cycle is and why it's important and what overclocking actually means. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: this is something we talked about a long time ago.
Speaker 1: A long long time ago, we talked about the Mega
Speaker 1: Hurt Smith and you know, the giga Hurt Smith, about
Speaker 1: the the speed of the processor and what it means
Speaker 1: and how it's really not necessarily all that important. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's kind of funny looking at computers now, um, because
Speaker 1: now that the dual core and quad core processors and
Speaker 1: and let's just say multi core processors, um, some of
Speaker 1: them look like they're going backward because you'll see, you know,
Speaker 1: a two gig or hurts processor and you wait a minute,
Speaker 1: the one I have now is a three point two
Speaker 1: y a three point two gigg hurts. Well, yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's got multiple cours processing, it's able to do this.
Speaker 1: But the clock speed is is basically the rate at
Speaker 1: which a processor is handling instructions. Very good. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: I actually saw a pretty interesting analogy on a Yale website.
Speaker 1: This was written by H. Gilbert, and Gilbert said that
Speaker 1: think of it like a high school. Right, So you're
Speaker 1: in class and then the bell rings, and that signals
Speaker 1: the end of class. So you leave alrighte and the
Speaker 1: second bell rings and you have to go to your
Speaker 1: next class. So those two bells, he says, think of
Speaker 1: that as a clock cycle. The first bells a tick
Speaker 1: and the second bells of talk, and the entire school
Speaker 1: reacts to those bells. It's not like one class gets
Speaker 1: a bell and then three minutes later another class gets
Speaker 1: a bell. It goes across the entire school. So, uh,
Speaker 1: think of a clock cycle on a on a CPU
Speaker 1: is the same sort of thing, except in steps, students,
Speaker 1: we're talking about data ones and zeros, so ones and zeros,
Speaker 1: and and that at every clock cycle, ones and zeros
Speaker 1: are moving around. And essentially every task you want a
Speaker 1: computer to do requires a certain number of cycles. Uh,
Speaker 1: some tasks only require one cycle and some will require
Speaker 1: multiple cycles because the task actually has more steps than
Speaker 1: what you might first imagine. And this changes over time.
Speaker 1: I should add back, you know, several years ago, many
Speaker 1: years ago, a couple of decades now, adding two numbers
Speaker 1: together might take six or eight clock cycles to complete, uh,
Speaker 1: and today it might take one clock cycle. So it's
Speaker 1: become more efficient. So that's one way that CPUs have
Speaker 1: sped up over time. But an others that we've actually
Speaker 1: managed to fit more clock cycles in per second, and
Speaker 1: that's the speed we talk about with processors. That's how
Speaker 1: many clock cycles or pulses if you prefer, go through
Speaker 1: the the that particular element on your computer every second.
Speaker 1: So if you hear about a here's a dinosaur. Let's
Speaker 1: say you hear about a five hundred mega hurts processor,
Speaker 1: that means five hundred million clock cycles per second go
Speaker 1: through that that CPU. All things considered, that's that's pretty fast, right.
Speaker 1: But you know, then we talk about things like a
Speaker 1: two point for gigahertz processor that's two point four billion
Speaker 1: clock cycles per second, much faster, which is even much faster,
Speaker 1: and they get faster than that obviously, But that's so
Speaker 1: so when we're talking about processor speed. We really talking
Speaker 1: about the amount of work a processor can do within
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time, and faster processors can do
Speaker 1: more work in that in that time frame. So the
Speaker 1: five hundred mega Hurts processor can do five hundred million,
Speaker 1: uh can not five million tasks, but can use five
Speaker 1: million clock cycles toward tasks in a second, whereas the
Speaker 1: two point for gigahurts does two point four billion clock
Speaker 1: cycles toward tasks in a second. So yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: essentially the speed element. Now, UH CPUs are not the
Speaker 1: only thing that work on cycles, by the way, just
Speaker 1: want to make that clear when we do talk about
Speaker 1: clock cycles. Other elements like memory and IO devices also
Speaker 1: operate on cycles. And all of this is controlled ultimately
Speaker 1: by the motherboard. Yes. Now, if you're wondering how a
Speaker 1: you know, how they come out with these chips, UM,
Speaker 1: Well it's it's it's sort of controlled. Um. If you
Speaker 1: think about it. Let's say, let's take Jonathan's five mega
Speaker 1: Hurts processor. UM, the manufacturer has, you know, knows something
Speaker 1: about the range at which this chip can operate. Um,
Speaker 1: it can operate more slowly than that, it can operate
Speaker 1: more quickly than that. But what goes on is in
Speaker 1: the process of building this and testing this chip, they
Speaker 1: know roughly about how much electricity it's going to use
Speaker 1: and about how hot it's gonna get. Um. Many many
Speaker 1: of us UH have an idea of what happens when
Speaker 1: your computer overheats. UM. It will seize up eventually, UM
Speaker 1: and decrease the operating life of the computer overall too
Speaker 1: if it gets too hot too frequently. Yeah. So the
Speaker 1: thing is the the manufacturer of the processor is going
Speaker 1: to go, well, okay, this is this is a good range.
Speaker 1: This is about what it's gonna do. And essentially, yeah,
Speaker 1: and essentially it'll runs as fast as this without going
Speaker 1: nuts and requiring you know, a A to be immersed
Speaker 1: in liquid nitrogen to keep it cold. We'll get to
Speaker 1: that right, right, So this is under normal operating conditions.
Speaker 1: This is about how fast this chip is going to run.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's five hundred mega hurts and and there
Speaker 1: are instructions UM in the computer actually written into ROM
Speaker 1: that will keep it from doing more than that. Yeah. Essentially,
Speaker 1: you've got two elements that determine the speed. You have
Speaker 1: the motherboard which provides a baseline speed, and those tend
Speaker 1: to be around one, three, one sixty six or two
Speaker 1: hundred mega hurts, and then you have a multiplier on
Speaker 1: the CPU itself. Right, So for the five hundred megahurts
Speaker 1: machine we were talking about, the multiplayer might be five,
Speaker 1: and the motherboard provides one hundred mega hurts. So the
Speaker 1: clock inside the CPU is going to run at five
Speaker 1: times the speed of the clock on the motherboard. So
Speaker 1: the motherboard sets the pace, the CPU multiplies that pace,
Speaker 1: and that's where you get your processor clocks need So
Speaker 1: the five multiplayer times the one hundred mega hurts, that's
Speaker 1: where you get your five hundred mega hurts. Now if
Speaker 1: you had a a multiplayer that was say twenty four
Speaker 1: times one hundred, well that's where you get the two
Speaker 1: point four giga hurts because you get the two thousand,
Speaker 1: one four hundred, and then that two thousand, four hundred
Speaker 1: mega hurts is the same as two points for gig hurts. Um.
Speaker 1: So the multiplayers tend to be difficult to change with
Speaker 1: most processors, not all, but a lot of processors have
Speaker 1: the manufacturers have locked down that multiplayer in order to
Speaker 1: prevent people from pushing it too hard and causing problems
Speaker 1: down the line. Yeah, because Ultimately, the majority of us
Speaker 1: are going to buy our computers. We're going to set
Speaker 1: it up, do our work on it, play games on it,
Speaker 1: do whatever it is that we're going to do on it.
Speaker 1: And the point is we wanted to last. Most of
Speaker 1: us can't just go buy a new computer. And if
Speaker 1: we don't know what we're doing as far as over clocking, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just gonna we want this machine to
Speaker 1: last us a good long time. And if you use
Speaker 1: it under normal circumstances, unless the fan breaks or some
Speaker 1: the cooling mechanism breaks. Even in computers with no fans,
Speaker 1: let's say, uh, you know one of the older Imax
Speaker 1: that they made a point of putting no fan in.
Speaker 1: If you clogged up the air vents with something dust,
Speaker 1: a blanket, it will overheat and the computer will die
Speaker 1: or it will shorten the life of it. Um, so
Speaker 1: be un study an old crash a lot, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. So to the point of the manufacturer setting
Speaker 1: a clock speed a default clock speed is is basically
Speaker 1: to make it a motherboard, a chip on a motherboard
Speaker 1: that it's gonna last the average computer user a good
Speaker 1: long while years hopefully, I'd say that's the that's the point.
Speaker 1: I'd say that's true in the majority of cases. There
Speaker 1: are a few cases where manufacturers have developed one chip
Speaker 1: to go in a line of computers and have it
Speaker 1: in essentially a a an artificial limit to how fast
Speaker 1: that processor can go per model. So let's say that
Speaker 1: I've got a selection of computers, um, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: say we're gonna call a Model A, B, C, and D,
Speaker 1: and all four of these have the same processor in them,
Speaker 1: but I've put limitations on it so that Model A
Speaker 1: can only go at five hundred mega hurts, and Model
Speaker 1: B as a giga hurts, and and Model C as
Speaker 1: two gig hurts, and Model D is like two point
Speaker 1: four giga hurts, and two point four is really where
Speaker 1: the sweet spot is. But I've put in these artificial
Speaker 1: limitations on the previous ones. The reason for that would
Speaker 1: be I only have to manufacture one chip, and I
Speaker 1: can create devices for multiple markets. Because there's some people
Speaker 1: are gonna be out there who are saying, I need
Speaker 1: a computer, but I don't need it to do the
Speaker 1: latest stuff, or I can't afford to buy a computer
Speaker 1: that has like the top level technology in it. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and get this base model instead, and
Speaker 1: then they're going to be the up people on the
Speaker 1: other side of it, saying I want the fastest machine
Speaker 1: I can possibly get, so they're gonna go for the
Speaker 1: other one. Well, they can create a whole range of
Speaker 1: computers meeting all of these demands using the same chip
Speaker 1: if they put those limitations in place. And in some
Speaker 1: cases you can't really get around the multiplier limitation without
Speaker 1: some really deep knowledge and risking ruining your computer. However,
Speaker 1: what you can do has changed the rate on the
Speaker 1: motherboard itself, and you do that through the BIOS system.
Speaker 1: And before we before we get into technical detail, um,
Speaker 1: overclocking is the process that we're talking about. Now. This
Speaker 1: means that you're increasing the limit at which the chip
Speaker 1: can process instructions. Yeah, it's essentially pushing more clock cycles
Speaker 1: in per second than what the chip was recommended for.
Speaker 1: And we should say it really is a recommendation because uh,
Speaker 1: like so saying most of these chips, I mean almost
Speaker 1: all chips that come out have the capacity to operate
Speaker 1: over what they are rated for. So at two point
Speaker 1: four gigahertz processor can actually work faster than that. In fact,
Speaker 1: usually it's around five to ten percent faster than what
Speaker 1: the rating is for. So if you are still five
Speaker 1: to tempercent faster without running the risk of causing damage
Speaker 1: to your computer, so you might be able to boost
Speaker 1: your computer's performance by or at least the processing speed
Speaker 1: by five or ten percent without having to worry about
Speaker 1: additional concerns. Once you go beyond that, then you have
Speaker 1: to start looking into creative ways of managing your computer
Speaker 1: so that it doesn't you know, just crash on you.
Speaker 1: And even if you do just overclock your computer a
Speaker 1: little bit, there is a chance that stuff will crash
Speaker 1: because sometimes programs just don't work very well with overclocked processors. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's the basis. Though. Overclocking means that you're pushing
Speaker 1: through more clock cycles. Second and uh, before we again,
Speaker 1: before we get into too much detail, this is not
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that you want to do casually
Speaker 1: and figure, oh, you know what, let's just go and
Speaker 1: try this. You want to think about how what happens
Speaker 1: if it doesn't work, because if you don't follow the
Speaker 1: instructions carefully. Um. And we're not going to give you
Speaker 1: a lot of instructions because there's a lot of depend
Speaker 1: upon what the processor is so yeah. Yeah, But the
Speaker 1: thing is, if you're not very careful, you could damage
Speaker 1: your computer permanently. And most of the time, if you
Speaker 1: try to overclock your processor, you're violating a warranty. So
Speaker 1: if you if you do damage your computer, you don't
Speaker 1: have any recourse to get it fixed by the manufacturer
Speaker 1: because they're gonna say, hey, you did this thing you
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to do. Therefore, we have no obligation to
Speaker 1: help you out. So so if you do this, make
Speaker 1: sure you you put some thought into it and make
Speaker 1: sure this is something you feel up to and that
Speaker 1: you're you're willing to try before you really give it
Speaker 1: a shot. If you want to. Uh, it could be
Speaker 1: very very profitable for you if you're looking for a
Speaker 1: faster machine and you have the uh, the ability, and
Speaker 1: the you know, the money if you need it. But
Speaker 1: we can get into that now, right right. And the
Speaker 1: reason why you would want to overclock your machine in
Speaker 1: the first place is that it allows you to run
Speaker 1: more advanced programs at a faster rate without having to
Speaker 1: buy a new processor or a new machine. That's that's
Speaker 1: the big attraction for a lot of gamers out there.
Speaker 1: They'll they'll buy a good gaming rig and then they
Speaker 1: over clocked their processors so that they can run games
Speaker 1: at at the highest settings without any slowdown and to
Speaker 1: have you know, the best performance in their game. Uh.
Speaker 1: And also it means that you know, they they're essentially
Speaker 1: getting higher like they're getting the equivalent of a faster processor,
Speaker 1: but they're buying a less expensive one. Right. So if
Speaker 1: there were say a two point eight processor out there,
Speaker 1: in a three point two processor out there, and you
Speaker 1: knew you could overclock your two point eight so that
Speaker 1: would equal or exceed the three point you say, well,
Speaker 1: why would I spend the extra money getting the three
Speaker 1: point two when I could get the two point eight
Speaker 1: and just over clock that puppy. And of course there's
Speaker 1: the maker's reason because they can. Yeah, yes, there's always
Speaker 1: that too. It's just like, hey, I I have the
Speaker 1: ability to fiddle with my computer settings. Gosh darn it,
Speaker 1: that's what I'm gonna do. Chris and I have more
Speaker 1: to say about over clocking a CPU, but first let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break to thank our sponsor. So you
Speaker 1: were talking a moment ago about the BIOS Basic Input
Speaker 1: Output System. Yes, now, this is a part of When
Speaker 1: you boot up your computer, it goes through the BIOS
Speaker 1: set up, and part of that BIO set up is
Speaker 1: the motherboard checks the processor, sees what kind of processor
Speaker 1: it is and what the recommended settings are, and then
Speaker 1: goes into that recommended setting. For the speed that the
Speaker 1: motherboard provides is later on multiplied by the processor. Uh.
Speaker 1: The thing is, you can actually interrupt the BIOS set
Speaker 1: up system and manually change those settings. So let's say
Speaker 1: that it was set at one hundred mega hurts, you
Speaker 1: could up it up to one thirty three or one
Speaker 1: sixty six or two hundred. Although you know, the more
Speaker 1: you boost this the the closer you ride that dangerous
Speaker 1: edge of possibly ruining your machine. It's like like getting
Speaker 1: in a car and pushing it faster than it was
Speaker 1: meant to go. It can start to shake apart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: most of the instructions I read in the process of
Speaker 1: doing research for this podcast suggested that you would tinker
Speaker 1: with the multiplier and basically, rather than going how high
Speaker 1: can I push this up? Start it all the way up,
Speaker 1: what they suggest doing is taking it up a couple
Speaker 1: of notches. Essentially, again, read the instructions carefully for for
Speaker 1: the the system that you have, and then and the
Speaker 1: materials that you've got on hand. But I'm oversimplifying. For
Speaker 1: the case of explanation, you might crank it up a
Speaker 1: notch or two notches and test it, see how it runs.
Speaker 1: Does it look like it's doing all right? Does it
Speaker 1: look like it's behaving oddly? If applications all crashing, but
Speaker 1: you might need to crank it back down again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And and like I said, not all multiplayers are You
Speaker 1: can't mess with all multiplayers. It all depends on the processors.
Speaker 1: Some of the processors are locked, so you that you
Speaker 1: can't do that, in which case you your only recourse
Speaker 1: is to change the setting of the motherboard as opposed
Speaker 1: to the setting on the processor. And also some motherboards
Speaker 1: you cannot do this through a software approach. You actually
Speaker 1: have to use a physical approach. You have to change
Speaker 1: these components that are called jumpers, which that will uh
Speaker 1: will limit the motherboard speed. You have to you would
Speaker 1: have to physically replace those, which requires opening up your
Speaker 1: computer case and taking stuff out and changing stuff out,
Speaker 1: and that that can get a little utimidating for folks.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit simpler when you just hit a
Speaker 1: couple of buttons and then change some numbers on the screen,
Speaker 1: But that might be necessary depending on the motherboard. A
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff about personal computers depends heavily on
Speaker 1: the specific hardware you have, which is why if you
Speaker 1: ever think about building a machine, you should really do
Speaker 1: some research and make sure that you know what components
Speaker 1: you're getting before you you jump into it. Because not
Speaker 1: every processor is compatible with every motherboard. So if you
Speaker 1: were to just try and create your own computer, build
Speaker 1: your own computer, and you just you know, you were
Speaker 1: buying whatever was on sale, you might discover that, oh,
Speaker 1: I got this great motherboard and this great processor, but
Speaker 1: they aren't compatible with each other, so I can't actually
Speaker 1: build a machine out of it. Well, the same sort
Speaker 1: of thing with overclocking. You just you know, they're different
Speaker 1: limitations based upon the actual hardware you have. And of course,
Speaker 1: uh it might involve depending on what you're doing, you
Speaker 1: might have to play around with the amount of voltage
Speaker 1: uh necessary to run the dangerous to Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: hopefully there are our listeners when we start talking about
Speaker 1: the amount of electricity we're getting into um or any
Speaker 1: any measure of electricity, they start going, oh, maybe I
Speaker 1: don't want to do this without you know, really doing
Speaker 1: some research. Um, I would very much recommend doing that
Speaker 1: if you are going to do getting into really messing
Speaker 1: with this. Um. But yeah, there it is worth noting
Speaker 1: though that uh uh certain boards are you know, certain
Speaker 1: processors I should say, come with the the ability to
Speaker 1: overclock sort of sanctioned. Yeah, they're built in. Intel has
Speaker 1: several chips that you can uh go into a specific
Speaker 1: screen and change the settings if you want to overclock
Speaker 1: your processor, like the Extreme edition. Yeah, so that way, seriously,
Speaker 1: you can do like the turbo stuff, or you can
Speaker 1: actually knock up the processors bed you can change the
Speaker 1: multiplier a little bit, that kind of stuff. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know again this is you might ask, well, why
Speaker 1: isn't it like that just out of the box. Well,
Speaker 1: for one thing, not everyone needs that kind of performance.
Speaker 1: And for another, uh, here's the thing about processors. We've
Speaker 1: talked about heat a bit and about generating heat, and
Speaker 1: too much heat can be a bad thing. When you
Speaker 1: have electricity running through a circuit, it generates heat as
Speaker 1: a byproduct. Some energy is lost due to heat waste.
Speaker 1: It waste some of its energy as heat. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: the more electricity you're pushing through. The more the more
Speaker 1: uh work you're making your system do, the more heat
Speaker 1: it's going to generate. And before long that heat might
Speaker 1: get to a point that's causing damage or or causing
Speaker 1: malfunctions within the machine itself. So you have to figure
Speaker 1: out a way of dispersing that heat UM to handle that,
Speaker 1: or else your device isn't gonna work for very long.
Speaker 1: You might have the world's fastest computer, but only for
Speaker 1: a few minutes before it just of yeah, well, of course,
Speaker 1: there have been computers with no fans. There have been
Speaker 1: computers with multiple fans. It all sort of depends on
Speaker 1: on the guts on the you know, the stuff that's
Speaker 1: inside the box um. And if you go to different
Speaker 1: overclocking communities, you can learn about the parts and bits
Speaker 1: that people uh seem to feel are the best. Now
Speaker 1: I saw a couple of fans listed as being excellent
Speaker 1: for overclockers because they're reliable and they push a lot
Speaker 1: of air UM. But depending on what you're doing, that
Speaker 1: may not be enough. You might have to go to
Speaker 1: say a water cooling system, which uh you know, water
Speaker 1: is a much more efficient dispersal of heat than than air,
Speaker 1: is it dispersal. I'm making up words now or misusing
Speaker 1: them at any rate. So anyway, water is much better
Speaker 1: at taking care of heat than than air is, and
Speaker 1: so a water based cooling system can be very useful
Speaker 1: for people who are overclocking their their machines and they
Speaker 1: want to really push it to the limit. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was joking about the liquid nitrogen earlier, but there are
Speaker 1: people who have some very elaborate liquid cooled computer systems.
Speaker 1: And depending on how much you're you're pushing, especially if
Speaker 1: you have something like the again like the Intel chips
Speaker 1: are the A M. D S Black Edition chips where
Speaker 1: you can you've got the opportunity to really tinker with it. Um,
Speaker 1: you might do that. There are actually an over clucking competitions.
Speaker 1: Liquid nitrogen has been used to cool uh CPUs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just it's not the kind of thing that the
Speaker 1: general public because it's all gonna have. You'm not gonna
Speaker 1: have a steady supply of liquid nitrogen to run through
Speaker 1: your machine constantly so that you can you can keep
Speaker 1: it going. But in any how have you seen my
Speaker 1: liquid nitrogen? It's not under the stage. Why do you
Speaker 1: need to know the uh uh where is my super suit.
Speaker 1: The uh yeah, but if you if you, if you
Speaker 1: don't have a stay supply of liquid nitrogen, then you
Speaker 1: know what are cooling or some other method is probably
Speaker 1: the best for you. But during these competitions that the
Speaker 1: purpose of the competitions isn't to build the fastest computer.
Speaker 1: It's to to try and push the limits of overclocking
Speaker 1: as far as you can go. It's not that you're
Speaker 1: going to have a practical machine after you're done, right,
Speaker 1: It's just this is an example of a a an artist,
Speaker 1: if you will, an engineer really knowing the limitations and
Speaker 1: how to play with them and how to push things
Speaker 1: to a super speed. So at ce S two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven there was an overclocking competition where they had several
Speaker 1: different phases and they were overclocking things not just CPUs
Speaker 1: but also graphics processing cards because you can do this
Speaker 1: with various components, not just CPUs. It's just that's what
Speaker 1: we tend to think about when we talk about overclocking.
Speaker 1: But in this competition, they took an I seven nine
Speaker 1: nine X Intel chip, which normally runs at three point
Speaker 1: three three giga hurts with a turbo speed capable of
Speaker 1: points six giga hurts. That's pretty darn fast. They overclocked
Speaker 1: it to five point nine three five giga hurts, so
Speaker 1: nearly six giga hurts of of clock speed. UM, and
Speaker 1: that was using some pretty phenomenal cooling mechanisms. Uh, not
Speaker 1: something that the average consumer is going to have at
Speaker 1: his or her fingertips. Not the average consumer. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: if your last name is do find Schmirtz, you might
Speaker 1: have something. Well, yeah, but that's all coming from the
Speaker 1: alimony my coldinator. Hither guys, it's Jonathan FROMT the Future.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna have us take another quick break to
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. When you overclock your process or, it
Speaker 1: does require that you tweak some other settings on your computer,
Speaker 1: including the ram UM. So keep in mind that this
Speaker 1: is not a a if you're just sort of I
Speaker 1: thinking of tinkering with it just for the fun of it. UM.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind that once you start messing with one
Speaker 1: part of it, you might have to tune some other
Speaker 1: factors relating to your your computer's operations. So uh, make
Speaker 1: sure you do a bit of reading about the processor
Speaker 1: you're using, UM and the other equipment, the ram the
Speaker 1: type of ram UM. You might even check out your GPU.
Speaker 1: If you're feeling bold, you might even try to overclock
Speaker 1: your GPU again. This will also increase the amount of heat. Um.
Speaker 1: So you this might be a good time to uh
Speaker 1: move your computer to a small bard in Norway where
Speaker 1: it is where I'm told it's rather chilly. Um. But
Speaker 1: the people of the seed vault are be coming. No
Speaker 1: move it down there, making the seeds warm up. But
Speaker 1: so yeah, it's quite a bit of there's quite a
Speaker 1: bit of tinkering that could be involved with this that
Speaker 1: you know. It's not just a oh well, I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna turn this one up to eleven. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of resources out on the net that will
Speaker 1: help you out if you want to try this. And
Speaker 1: really the nice thing is there's so many that are
Speaker 1: out there that you've got a good chance. If you
Speaker 1: just plug in whatever processor you have and the word
Speaker 1: overclocking into a decent search engine, you will probably get
Speaker 1: some returns from people who have gone through this process
Speaker 1: and they can tell you what worked for them or
Speaker 1: what you know, what things to avoid um. And like
Speaker 1: I said, there are a lot of communities out there
Speaker 1: on the net that have just full discussions, like full
Speaker 1: message boards just dedicated to overclocking and the different techniques
Speaker 1: that they used, and uh, you know, some of these
Speaker 1: might be a little technical and might require a little
Speaker 1: bit of backtracking so that you can really understand the
Speaker 1: the subtle, the subtleties of what it is they're saying.
Speaker 1: But but it's totally doable. I mean, in most cases,
Speaker 1: it's doable without you ever having to crack open your computer,
Speaker 1: which is the best part, right, you know, because you
Speaker 1: every time you have to open your computer and take
Speaker 1: stuff out, that eliminates a significant percentage of the people
Speaker 1: who would have tried it otherwise just because it's either
Speaker 1: too much of a hassle or they find it too intimidating.
Speaker 1: Um two things though, to to make sure one that
Speaker 1: you don't make assumptions on similarities. That was one thing
Speaker 1: that that I read that if your computer, if you're
Speaker 1: reading information reform about overclocking, you're getting ready, you're you're
Speaker 1: gotten the bug. You're seriously thinking about this now, and
Speaker 1: that you're reading a post by someone who's done it,
Speaker 1: who's who's got a chip that's a little that's just
Speaker 1: a little different than yours. Don't go by that information.
Speaker 1: They said that um from from what I have read
Speaker 1: from people who have written instructions on so you want
Speaker 1: to overclock your computer, well, here's what you should do.
Speaker 1: That was one of the things that I read several
Speaker 1: times was if you've got something that's very similar to
Speaker 1: what you've got to the instructions from, don't don't go
Speaker 1: by strict similarities. Make sure that you are going by
Speaker 1: someone who knows instructions based on the specific stuff that
Speaker 1: you're using, because similarities aren't good enough. When you're messing
Speaker 1: with this, you could seriously damage your computer. And uh,
Speaker 1: that's the other part. Make sure that you're really willing
Speaker 1: to give this a try, knowing that you might really
Speaker 1: muck things up for the insides of your machine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're careful, you probably don't really need to worry
Speaker 1: so much. But it's good to have in the back
Speaker 1: of your mind because otherwise, you know, if you you know,
Speaker 1: if you do the typical what we like to think
Speaker 1: of as the typical American thing, we're more equals better, right,
Speaker 1: you might be Let's Craig get up to eleven and
Speaker 1: the next thing you know, your machine doesn't do anything anymore.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not doing anything faster than any machine
Speaker 1: you've ever had. My computer does nothing at the speed
Speaker 1: of light. It works great as a doorstop. No, I'm
Speaker 1: sure that there will be somebody out there who's listening
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast who has had experience overclocking, and
Speaker 1: they're going to write in and say no, Jonathan and Chris,
Speaker 1: it's easy to overclock maybe for some people, but for
Speaker 1: some systems and for some systems, but um, you can't.
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't apply that universally across everybody. And uh,
Speaker 1: and it's it is possible that if you're not careful,
Speaker 1: you could damage your computer. And if you don't have
Speaker 1: a need for overclocking, if you're not playing lots of
Speaker 1: of of high like resource demanding games or or other
Speaker 1: applications that just require a lot of processing power. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it could be a fun experiment if it's
Speaker 1: something that you just want to try and get your
Speaker 1: hand in, and especially if you have like an old
Speaker 1: machine lying around that you don't really care about and
Speaker 1: you just want to have the experience of overclocking something,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But if you don't really have a need
Speaker 1: for it at all, I really don't see any reason
Speaker 1: to do it because Ultimately, if you are overclocking your
Speaker 1: machine to really push its limits, that is, it is
Speaker 1: not just a time investment, but it is a money
Speaker 1: investment too, because you will have to find some way
Speaker 1: to address that heat problem. And that concludes this classic
Speaker 1: episode of tech Stuff. I hope you guys got to
Speaker 1: learn a little bit about clock cycles and over clocking,
Speaker 1: and like I said, things change. CPUs and GPUs are
Speaker 1: much different. I mean, they work on the same general principle,
Speaker 1: but they're much more powerful than they were in two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve. And thank goodness, because otherwise I would never
Speaker 1: be able to play pub g at all. Anyway, I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this classic episode. If you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff, send me a message.
Speaker 1: The email is tech Stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Drop over to tech stuff podcast dot com. That's our
Speaker 1: website where we have other ways to contact us plus
Speaker 1: information about the show. There's also a link to our
Speaker 1: store over at t public dot com slash tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: Every purchase you make goes to help the show, and
Speaker 1: we greatly appreciate it. And I'll talk to you again
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and Fathlands of other
Speaker 1: topics is that how stuff works? Dot com m