Overclocking: What is it?

Say you somehow magically acquired dual RTX 3090's, coupled with 4 32 GB sticks of DDR4 4100 Mhz RAM, and with a Core i9 12900K CPU. It runs like pure butter, and pure bliss right. What if that's not enough for you. What if that unfair advantage you have over other people (Who use PC's that are like a hundredth less powerful like this) is just not enough for you. The most ultimate speed obtainable is just too boring for you - now that you have a behemoth of a PC, where is there to turn to next?

IS THIS JUST NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU??

The answer, is of course - either swapping some of the hardware for better ones, or if buying better hardware is tedious - overclocking is your answer. 

Now I'm certain you've heard of this term before, and before I get onto how it helps boost your system's overall performance, you need to know what exactly it means. Basically, almost all pieces of PC hardware, like RAM, the CPU and the GPU are overclockable. (Practically any device or hardware that uses a clock to synchronize its internal operations) These pieces of hardware, operate on something called clocks. This is how many cycles per second, something can operate. So in terms of CPU, this translates to how many cycles per second it can execute. In terms of RAM, its how much storage its able to read and write per second. You see what I'm going with this right?

Each of these pieces of hardware, operate on a base clock - sort of the minimum no. of cycles per second it can operate on. And a boost clock, the maximum no. of cycles per second it can operate on. Once you go above the boost clock, it may not work at all - due to internal hardware limitations. Now the value we use to measure these clocks, or clock rate, is hertz - or most of the time, gigahertz. Most mid-range CPUs run at around 3.5 - 4.5 Ghz (base clock) and this performs really well in terms of performance. Older CPUs are a much lower base clock of at least 1 Ghz. 

With this, overclocking is just increasing the clock rate - to a level that is lower than the boost clock; in order to increase overall performance. But, there are many caveats when it comes to overclocking. Such as:

1.) Overheating issues. Insufficient cooling for overclocked hardware can lead to permanent damage, and bricking. (In other words, its dead beyond repair)

2.) It can consume a lot more electricity than normal. Again, if your PSU has a low wattage, overconsumption of power can again lead to the PC not being able to boot up properly.

3.) It can cause some serious amount of noise. Your fans will run at more than full capacity, and as a result - it will sound as if a heavy gust of wind is blowing right at your face, each second you use the PC. 

So, you might think overclocking is bad - however this is if you over do it, if you increase the clock rate to dangerously close levels to the boost clock. However, if you do it right, say increasing the rate to somewhere between the two limit points - then you can get a decent, if at least 5% performance boost and maybe more if you remain cautious.

Overclocking does in fact increase performance, but in the long term - it can cause some increased wear and tear, especially with GPUs, when the built in fans, might give out to due to increased demand to cool the hardware. But how exactly does overclocking help. What does it do? 

Now in more technical terms, you basically increase the clock rate multiplier, through either a overclocking software, or more conventionally (For the CPU) through the motherboard's BIOS. This higher multiplier, effectively makes the throttling mechanism of the hardware redundant. This mechanism is able to control and regulate the clock rate, to favorable levels. Undoing this, allows the user to push the multiplier rate to a level, so that the mechanism is useless. 

A typical method for overclocking CPUs through the BIOS.

This allows your particular overclocked device, to run faster operations per second. Thus, in a CPU, the no. of execution cycles per second goes up, when the multiplier rate is high. Simple right? If you look at it like this, overclocking is definitely good. Coupled with adequate cooling, (Maybe place in some fans that output more air, or maybe even add water cooling if you have the cash and space) and an overkill PSU, and not to forget thermal paste for your CPU - you are good to overclock your hardware, albeit to a certain degree. 

So, thats all you'll hear from me for now. I apologize for the 3 day hiatus between uploads, as things got a little busy. However, stay tuned for a 2nd blog today itself, about bottlenecking and everything else about it! Feel free to comment, and to ask questions below - I'd definitely be glad to answer them!

Cheers!
- Vascal