Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff dot com. Well, hello there everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, as always is seen your writer
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. If I am out of my mind, it's
Speaker 1: all right with me, thought Moses Herzog. All right, I
Speaker 1: was a short one today, Yes, And today to start
Speaker 1: off our episode, we have a little Facebook feedback you be.
Speaker 1: This comes from Brian, who says I've been listening to
Speaker 1: you guys since almost the beginning. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could do a podcast about
Speaker 1: over clocking. You can talk about what it is, how
Speaker 1: it works, in the pros and cons of it. I've
Speaker 1: had some experience myself and can tell you it's well
Speaker 1: worth it. Can't wait to listen to your next podcast. Well, Brian,
Speaker 1: this one goes out to you. Now. We've talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about over clocking in past episodes, particularly Anything
Speaker 1: where we talked about CPUs and clock cycles. But but
Speaker 1: let's let's kind of go back and talk about what
Speaker 1: a clock cycle is and why it's important and what
Speaker 1: overclocking actually means. Yes, now, this is something we talk
Speaker 1: about a long time ago, A long long time ago,
Speaker 1: we talked about the Mega Hurt Smith and you know,
Speaker 1: the giga Hurt Smith, about the the speed of the
Speaker 1: processor and what it means, and how it's really not
Speaker 1: necessarily all that important. In fact, that it's kind of
Speaker 1: funny looking at computers now, um, because now that the
Speaker 1: dual core and quad core processors and and well let's
Speaker 1: just say multi core processors, um, some of them look
Speaker 1: like they're going backward because you'll see, you know, a
Speaker 1: two gigga Hurts processor and you go, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: the one I have now is a three point two Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a three point two gigga Hurts. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's got multiple cores processing, it's able to do this.
Speaker 1: But the clock speed is is basically the rate at
Speaker 1: which a process 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, alright, 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 another is 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 giga Hurts processor that's two point four
Speaker 1: billion clock cycles per second, 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, really talking about
Speaker 1: the amount of work a processor can do within a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time, and faster processors can do more
Speaker 1: work in that in that timeframe. So the five hundred
Speaker 1: mega Hurts processor can do five hundred million uh can
Speaker 1: not five million tasks, but can use five million clock
Speaker 1: cycles toward tasks in a second, whereas the two point
Speaker 1: for giga Hurts does two point for billion clock cycles
Speaker 1: toward tasks in a second. So yeah, that's that's essentially
Speaker 1: the speed element. Now, uh CPUs are not the only
Speaker 1: thing that work on cycles, by the way, US want
Speaker 1: to make that clear when we do talk about clock cycles.
Speaker 1: Other elements like memory and io devices also operate on cycles.
Speaker 1: And all of this is controlled ultimately by the motherboard. Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're wondering how a you know, how they come
Speaker 1: out with these chips, UM, Well it's it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of controlled UM. If you think about it. Let's say,
Speaker 1: let's take Jonathan's five megahertz processor. UM. The manufacturer has
Speaker 1: you know, knows something about the range at which this
Speaker 1: chip can operate. UM. It can operate more slowly than that,
Speaker 1: it can operate more quickly than that. But what goes
Speaker 1: on is in the process of building this and testing
Speaker 1: this chip, they know roughly about how much electricity it's
Speaker 1: going to use and about how hot it's gonna get. UM.
Speaker 1: Many many of us UH have an idea of what
Speaker 1: happens when you're compute it or overheats. UM. It will
Speaker 1: seize up eventually UM and decrease the operating life of
Speaker 1: the computer overall. Too If it gets too hot too frequently. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the thing is the manufacturer of the processor is
Speaker 1: going to go, well, okay, this is this is a
Speaker 1: good range. 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 chick is going to run.
Speaker 1: Let's say it's five mega hurts and and there are
Speaker 1: instructions um in the computer actually written into ROM that
Speaker 1: 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 to
Speaker 1: be around one hundred thirty three, one sixty six or
Speaker 1: two hundred mega hurts. And then you have a multiplier
Speaker 1: on the CPU itself. 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 clock speed. 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 point four 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 gonna set it up,
Speaker 1: do our work on it, play games on it, do
Speaker 1: whatever it is that we're gonna do on it. And
Speaker 1: the point is we want it to last. Uh, most
Speaker 1: of us can't just go buy a new computer. And
Speaker 1: if we don't know what we're doing as far as
Speaker 1: over clogging, um, you know, we're just gonna we want
Speaker 1: this machine to last us a good long time and
Speaker 1: if you use it under normal circumstances, unless the fan
Speaker 1: breaks or some the cooling mechanism breaks. Even in computers
Speaker 1: with no fans, let's say, uh, you know one of
Speaker 1: the older Imax that they made a point of putting
Speaker 1: no fan in. If you clogged up the air vents
Speaker 1: with something dust, a blanket, it will overheat and the
Speaker 1: computer will die or it will shorten the life of it. Um,
Speaker 1: So be unsteady and 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 put
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 say,
Speaker 1: 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 UM models see
Speaker 1: as two gig hurts, and Model D is like two
Speaker 1: point four gig hurts, and two point four is really
Speaker 1: where the sweet spot is. But I've put in these
Speaker 1: artificial limitations on the previous ones. The reason for that
Speaker 1: would be I only have to manufacture one chip, and
Speaker 1: I can create devices for multiple markets. Because there's some
Speaker 1: people are gonna be out there who are saying, I
Speaker 1: need a computer, but I don't need it to do
Speaker 1: the latest stuff, or I can't afford to buy a
Speaker 1: computer that has like the top level technology in it,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go and get this base model instead,
Speaker 1: And then they're gonna 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 a 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 Chris was saying, most of these chips, I mean
Speaker 1: almost all chips that come out have the capacity to
Speaker 1: operate over what they are rated for. So at two
Speaker 1: point four gigahertz processor can actually work faster than that.
Speaker 1: In fact, usually it's around five to ten percent faster
Speaker 1: than what the rating is for. So if you are
Speaker 1: still five to tempercent faster without running the risk of
Speaker 1: causing damage to your computer, so you might be able
Speaker 1: to boost your computer performance by or at least the
Speaker 1: processing speed by five or ten percent without having to
Speaker 1: worry about additional concerns. Once you go beyond that, then
Speaker 1: you have to start looking into creative ways of managing
Speaker 1: your computer so that it doesn't you know, just crash
Speaker 1: on you. And even if you do just overclock your
Speaker 1: computer a little bit, there is a chance that stuff
Speaker 1: will crash because sometimes programs just don't work very well
Speaker 1: with overclocked processors. Um. Yeah, So that's the basis. Though.
Speaker 1: Overclocking means that you're pushing through more clock cycles per second.
Speaker 1: And uh, before we again, before we get into too
Speaker 1: much detail, this is not the kind of thing that
Speaker 1: you want to do casually and figure, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's just go and try this. You want to think
Speaker 1: about how what happens if it doesn't work, because if
Speaker 1: you don't follow the instructions carefully. Um. And we're not
Speaker 1: going to give you a lot of instructions because there's
Speaker 1: a lot depend upon what the processor is. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but the thing is, if you're not very careful, you
Speaker 1: could amage your computer permanently. And most of the time,
Speaker 1: if you try to overclock your processor, you're violating a warranty.
Speaker 1: So if you if you do damage your computer, you
Speaker 1: don't have any recourse to get it fixed by the
Speaker 1: manufacturer because they're gonna say, hey, you did this thing
Speaker 1: you weren't supposed to do. Therefore, we have no obligation
Speaker 1: to help you out. So so if you do this,
Speaker 1: make sure you you put some thought into it and
Speaker 1: make sure this is something you feel up to and
Speaker 1: that you're you're willing to try before you really give
Speaker 1: it a shot if you want to. Uh, it could
Speaker 1: be very very profitable for you if you're looking for
Speaker 1: a faster machine and you have the uh, the ability,
Speaker 1: and the you know, the money if you need it.
Speaker 1: But we can get into that now, right right. And
Speaker 1: the reason why you would want to overclock your machine
Speaker 1: in the first place is that it allows you to
Speaker 1: run more advanced programs at a faster rate without having
Speaker 1: to buy a new processor or a new machine. That's
Speaker 1: that's 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: overclocked their processors so that they can run games at
Speaker 1: at the highest settings without any slowdown and to have
Speaker 1: you know, the best performance in their game. UH. And
Speaker 1: also it means that you know they they're essentially getting
Speaker 1: 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 two, 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 overclocked that puppy. And of course there's the
Speaker 1: maker's reason because they can. Yeah, yes, there's always that too.
Speaker 1: It's just like, hey, I I have the ability to
Speaker 1: fiddle with my computer settings. Gosh darn it, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. So you were talking a moment ago
Speaker 1: about the BIOS, the basic input output system. Yes, now,
Speaker 1: this is a part of when you boot up your computer.
Speaker 1: It goes through the BIO set up, and part of
Speaker 1: that BIO set up is the motherboard checks the processor,
Speaker 1: sees what kind of processor it is and what the
Speaker 1: recommended settings are, and then goes into that recommended setting
Speaker 1: for the speed that the motherboard provides as later on
Speaker 1: multiplied by the processor. Uh. The thing is, you can
Speaker 1: actually interrupt the BIOS set up system and manually change
Speaker 1: those settings. So let's say that it was set at
Speaker 1: one hundred megahurts. You could up it up to one
Speaker 1: thirty three or one sixty six or two hundred. Although
Speaker 1: you know the more you boost this the the closer
Speaker 1: you ride that dangerous edge of possibly ruining your machine.
Speaker 1: It's like like getting in a car and pushing it
Speaker 1: faster than it was meant to go. It can start
Speaker 1: to shake apart. Most of the instructions I read in
Speaker 1: the process of doing research for this podcast suggested that
Speaker 1: you would tinker with the multiplier and basically, rather than
Speaker 1: going how high can I push this up, let's turn
Speaker 1: it all the way up, what they suggest doing is
Speaker 1: taking it up a couple of notches. Essentially. Again, read
Speaker 1: the instructions carefully for for the the system that you have,
Speaker 1: and then and then the materials that you've got on him.
Speaker 1: But I'm oversimplifying. For the case of explanation, you might
Speaker 1: crank it up a notch or two notches and test
Speaker 1: it see how it runs. Does it look like it's
Speaker 1: doing all right? Does it look like it's behaving oddly
Speaker 1: if the applications all crashing, But you might need to
Speaker 1: crank it back down again. Yeah, And and like I said,
Speaker 1: not all multiplayers are You can't mess with all multipliers.
Speaker 1: It all depends on the processors. Some of the processors
Speaker 1: are locked, so you let you can't do that, in
Speaker 1: which case you your only recourse is to change the
Speaker 1: setting of the motherboard as opposed to the setting on
Speaker 1: the processor. And also some motherboards you cannot do this
Speaker 1: through a software approach. You actually have to use physical approach.
Speaker 1: You have to change these components that are called jumpers,
Speaker 1: which that will uh will limit the motherboard speed. You
Speaker 1: have to you would have to physically replace those, which
Speaker 1: requires opening up your computer case and taking stuff out
Speaker 1: and changing stuff out, and that that can get a
Speaker 1: little intimidating for folks. It's a little bit simpler when
Speaker 1: you just hit a couple of buttons and then change
Speaker 1: some numbers on the screen, but that might be necessary
Speaker 1: depending on the motherboard. A lot of the stuff about
Speaker 1: personal computers depends heavily on the specific hardware you have,
Speaker 1: which is why if you ever think about building a machine,
Speaker 1: you should really do some research and make sure that
Speaker 1: you know what components you're getting before you you jump
Speaker 1: into it, because not every processor is compatible with every motherboard.
Speaker 1: So if you were to just try and create your
Speaker 1: own computer, build your own computer and you just you know,
Speaker 1: you were buying whatever was on sale. You might discover that,
Speaker 1: oh I got this great motherboard and this great sensor,
Speaker 1: but they aren't compatible with each other, so I can't
Speaker 1: actually build a machine out of it. Well, 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, uh, depending on what you're doing,
Speaker 1: you might have to play around with the amount of
Speaker 1: voltage uh necessary to run. Yeah, well, I hopefully there
Speaker 1: are our listeners when we start talking about the amount
Speaker 1: of electricity we're getting into um or any any measure
Speaker 1: of electricity, they start going, oh, maybe I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this without you know, really doing some research. UM.
Speaker 1: I would very much recommend doing that if you are
Speaker 1: going to do getting into really messing with this UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they're it is worth noting though that uh
Speaker 1: uh certain boards are you know, certain processors, I should say,
Speaker 1: come with the the ability to overclock sort of sanctioned
Speaker 1: they're built in. Intel has several chips that you can
Speaker 1: uh go into a specific screen and change the settings
Speaker 1: if you want to overclock your processor. Extreme Edition Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that way, you know, you can do like the
Speaker 1: turbo stuff, or you can actually knock up the processor speed.
Speaker 1: You can change the multiplier a little bit, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. And uh you know again this is you
Speaker 1: might ask, well, why isn't it like that just out
Speaker 1: of the box. Well, for one thing, not everyone needs
Speaker 1: that kind of performance. And for another, uh, here's the
Speaker 1: thing about processors. We've talked about heat a bit and
Speaker 1: about generating heat, and too much heat can be a
Speaker 1: bad thing. When you have electricity running through a circuit,
Speaker 1: it generates heat as a byproduct. Yes, some energy is
Speaker 1: lost due to heat. Yeah, waste. It wastes some of
Speaker 1: its energy as heat. Yeah. So the more electricity you're
Speaker 1: pushing through the more the more uh work you're making
Speaker 1: your system do, the more heat it's going to generate.
Speaker 1: And before along, that heat might get to a point
Speaker 1: that's causing damage or or causing malfunctions within the machine itself.
Speaker 1: So you have to figure out a way of dispersing
Speaker 1: that heat um to handle that, or else your device
Speaker 1: isn't gonna work for very long. You might have the
Speaker 1: world's fastest computer, but only for a few minutes before
Speaker 1: it just uh yeah, well, of course, there have been
Speaker 1: computers with no fans, there have been computers with multiple fans.
Speaker 1: It all sort of depends on on the guts on
Speaker 1: the you know, the stuff that's inside the box um.
Speaker 1: And if you go to different overclocking communities you can
Speaker 1: learn about the parts and bits that people uh seem
Speaker 1: to feel are the best. Now, I saw a couple
Speaker 1: of fans listed as being excellent for overclockers because they're
Speaker 1: reliable and they push a lot of air um. But
Speaker 1: depending on what you're doing, that may not be enough.
Speaker 1: You might have to go to, say a water cooling system,
Speaker 1: which you know, water is a much more efficient dispersal
Speaker 1: of heat than than air is dispersal. I'm making up
Speaker 1: words now or misusing them at any rate. So anyway,
Speaker 1: water is much better at taking care of heat than
Speaker 1: than air is, and so a water based cooling system
Speaker 1: can be very useful for people who are overclocking their
Speaker 1: their machines and they want to really push it to
Speaker 1: the limit. Yeah, I was joking about the liquid nitrogen earlier,
Speaker 1: but there are people who have some very elaborate liquid
Speaker 1: cooled computer systems, and depending on how much you're you're pushing,
Speaker 1: especially if you have something like the again, like the
Speaker 1: Intel chips are the A M. D. S Black Edition
Speaker 1: chips where you can you've got the opportunity to really
Speaker 1: tinker with it, um you might do that. They are
Speaker 1: actually an overclocking competitions. Liquid nitrogen has been used to
Speaker 1: cool uh CPUs. Yeah, I'm just it's not the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that the general public because he's not gonna have.
Speaker 1: You'm not going to have a steady supply of liquid
Speaker 1: nitrogen to run through your machine constantly so that you
Speaker 1: can you can keep it going. But any how have
Speaker 1: you seen my nitrogen? It's not the stage. Why do
Speaker 1: you need to know the uh uh? Where is my
Speaker 1: super suit? The uh? Yeah? But if you if you,
Speaker 1: if you don't have a station have liquid nitrogen, then
Speaker 1: you know what are cooling or some other method is
Speaker 1: probably the best for you. But during these competitions that
Speaker 1: the 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
Speaker 1: artist if you will an engineer really knowing the limitations
Speaker 1: and how to play with them and how to push
Speaker 1: things to a super speed. So at ce S two
Speaker 1: thousand eleven there was an overclocking competition where they had
Speaker 1: several different phases and they were overclocking things, not just
Speaker 1: CPUs but also graphics processing cards, because you can do
Speaker 1: this with various components, not just CPUs. It's just that's
Speaker 1: what we tend to think about when we talked about
Speaker 1: over clocking. But in this competition, they took an I
Speaker 1: seven x Intel chip, which normally runs at three point
Speaker 1: three three giga hurts with a turbo speed capable of
Speaker 1: three point six giga hurts. That's pretty darn fast. They
Speaker 1: over clocked it to five point nine three five giga hurts,
Speaker 1: so nearly six giga hurts of of clock speed. Um.
Speaker 1: And that was using some pretty phenomenal cooling mechanisms. Uh,
Speaker 1: not something that the average consumer is going to have
Speaker 1: at his or her fingertips. Not the average consumer. Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe if your last name is do find Schmirtz, you
Speaker 1: might have something. Well, yeah, but that's all coming from
Speaker 1: the alimony. Um, it's my coldinator. Um. Yeah, And and
Speaker 1: it does require that when you over clocked your processor,
Speaker 1: it does require that you tweak some other settings on
Speaker 1: your computer, including the ram UM. So keep in mind
Speaker 1: that this is not a a if you're just sort
Speaker 1: of I thinking of tinkering with it just for the
Speaker 1: fun of it. UM. Keep in mind that once you
Speaker 1: start messing with one part of it, you might have
Speaker 1: to tune some other factors relating to your your computer's operations.
Speaker 1: So uh, make sure you do a bit of reading
Speaker 1: about the processor you're using, UM and the other equipment,
Speaker 1: the ram the type of ram UM. You might even
Speaker 1: check out your GPU. If you're feeling bold, you might
Speaker 1: even try to overclock your GPU again. This will also
Speaker 1: increase the amount of heat. UM, so you this might
Speaker 1: be a good time to uh move your computer to
Speaker 1: a small bard in Norway where it is u where
Speaker 1: I'm told it's rather chilly. Um, But the people at
Speaker 1: the seed vault are be going no move it down there.
Speaker 1: You're making the seeds warm up. But so, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: quite a bit of there's quite a bit of tinkering
Speaker 1: that could be involved with this that you know. It's
Speaker 1: not just a oh well, I'm just going to turn
Speaker 1: this one up to eleven and we're good. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of resources out on the net that
Speaker 1: will help you out if you want to try this.
Speaker 1: And really, the nice thing is there's so many that
Speaker 1: are out there that you've got a good chance. If
Speaker 1: you just plug in whatever processor you have and the
Speaker 1: word overclocking into a decent search engine, you will probably
Speaker 1: get some returns from people who have gone through this
Speaker 1: process and they can tell you what worked for them
Speaker 1: or what you know, what things to avoid. Um And
Speaker 1: like I said, there are a lot of communities out
Speaker 1: there on the net that have just full discussions, like
Speaker 1: full message boards just dedicated to overclocking and the different
Speaker 1: techniques that they used. And uh, you know, some of
Speaker 1: these might be a little technical and might require a
Speaker 1: little bit of backtracking so that you can really understand
Speaker 1: the 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. UM.
Speaker 1: Two things though to to make sure. One that you
Speaker 1: don't make assumptions on similarities. That was one thing that
Speaker 1: that I read that if your computer, if you're reading
Speaker 1: information Reform about overclock and 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 it 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. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that there will be somebody out there who's
Speaker 1: listening listening to this podcast who has had experience overclocking,
Speaker 1: and they're going to write in and say, no, Jonathan
Speaker 1: and Chris, it's easy to overclock, maybe for some people,
Speaker 1: but for some systems and for some systems, but um,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't. You can't at play that universally
Speaker 1: across everybody. And uh, and it's it is possible that
Speaker 1: if you're not careful, you could damage your computer. And
Speaker 1: if you don't have a need for overclocking, if you're
Speaker 1: not playing lots of of of high resource demanding games
Speaker 1: or or other applications that just require a lot of
Speaker 1: processing power. Um. I mean, it could be a fun
Speaker 1: experiment if it's something that you just want to try
Speaker 1: and get your hand in, and especially if you have
Speaker 1: like an old machine lying around that you don't really
Speaker 1: care about and you just want to have the experience
Speaker 1: of overclocking something, that's fine. But if you don't really
Speaker 1: have a need for it at all, I really don't
Speaker 1: see any reason to do it, because ultimately, if you
Speaker 1: are overclocking your machine to really push its limits, that
Speaker 1: is it is not just a time investment, but it
Speaker 1: is a money investment too, because you will have to
Speaker 1: find some way to address that heat problem. It's not
Speaker 1: you know, because your computer when it was built, was
Speaker 1: built with a certain amount of heat in mind and
Speaker 1: nothing beyond that, and you're gonna be generating a lot
Speaker 1: more heat than what that computer was designed to handle.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, if your office is in the breeder,
Speaker 1: that may not be such a problem. Yeah, some days
Speaker 1: I wonder if we are so that wraps up this
Speaker 1: discussion about overclocking and apparently the HVAC system and how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. If you guys have any requests
Speaker 1: for topics that you would like us to cover, let
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Speaker 1: text stuff h s W or send us an email.
Speaker 1: Our address is tech stuff at Discovery dot com and
Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk to you again really soon.
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