O/C Difference

[lechumbl]

Hi all,

I have an O/C question or two.

When I run my 6 core Xeon (3066 stock MHz) at 3720 MHz or at 3912 MHz, there is so little difference in the time for frames in F@H.

There is only a few seconds difference, yet at the higher clock, the heat and the damage to the CPU and the system in general is very high.

In order to get the high clocks, the voltage needs to be cranked up so high and the FSB also.
Heat shortens the life of electronic parts so much. I hate to burn up a $600.00 CPU or a $250.00 mobo.

Other than "braggin' rights", why would I need to have much higher heat and damage to my system for so little time savings?

Take care, and thanx for replies..........

[SugarJ]

Why do we overclock at all? So we can get more performance out of a cheaper part. So we can do things faster. And so we can brag about it.

Really, if you are keeping the parts for an extended period like 2 years or more, then run it where you're more comfortable. But if you are like me, you max your OC, and run it until something newer or better comes along (usually 6 months to a year for me) then you sell it. Although I'm still running the same X58 Classified / i7 920 combo for about 18 months now, but I've had 4 GPU's in that time frame.

As for heat control, if you are really concerned about it go water cooling. It works.

[lechumbl]

Hi SugarJ,

"So we can get more performance out of a cheaper part"
Unfortunately, the 6 core Xeon is not cheap. Can't be putting that much out too often.

"So we can do things faster."
That is my point on the F@H, it is not faster, to speak of.
If I was running a gaming rig, or something like that, then yes. I do nothing on that rig but fold, so faster is not needed. It is not a matter of comfortable with, it is a matter, if it does not improve the times per frame on F@H, there is no need for me to suffer the heat.

"As for heat control, if you are really concerned about it, go water cooling. It works."
Actually, I am running water cooling now. Have been for years on all my rigs.

I know what you are saying, but, as a retired hardware/software engineer from Microsoft, I look at things different than most folks do.
I know heat will kill prematurely, and at prices today, that is not a good thing.

Thanx for the reply, I appreciate your comments!!

Take care......

[supaflyx3]

Are you running bigadv or smp? You should see quite a bit of a difference in bigadv..

[lechumbl]

Hi supaflyx3,

My daily PPD to F@H is 75k+, I am running -bigadv.

Take care.........

[Supergrover]

Sure heat will kill a cpu prematurely but in most instances the cpu will be long obsolete before that happens, hell I have a Tbird and Tbred here that have both been running 24/7 for well more years than they should, both perfectly fine but if they did die then so what I have got more than the life of the units.
Will heat/voltage kill a CPU, yup but as long as you are reasonable with the voltage then whats 2 years off a 10 year life span?
Depend s on the overclock for the gains they are most defiantly there though, though by the looks of things your not seeing them.:/
For me as probably alot of us here would rather buy a lower priced CPU and overclock it to a higherend cpus clocks, thus netting you a performance boost for less money.
TBH I have not run a cpu @ stock for folding in years ( going to actually have a look at the difference in PPD now though) but I think I will just to see what the difference. I wont be lowering my clocks though because for gaming I net a shit ton more fps @ 5g than 3.4g.

[stoanee]

Of course there is always a point that you feel comfortable with in an overclock. Personally I always use temperature as my limiting factor.

[lechumbl]

Hi all,

You guys are missing my point.

Why O/C insanely when it hardly affects the time per frame, that's all.

We can talk heat, etc, forever, but the bottom line is, it is such a small amount of time difference, that it is not worth the higher heat issues, simple as that.

Sure, O/C will drop 2 years off of a 10 year CPU, but who cares. We always upgrade, as was said, every 6 months or so anyway.

Again, this thread was to ask why O/C to the limit, other than bragging rights, when is does not affect the PPD much.

Take care and thanx for the discussion........

[Supergrover]

Originally Posted by lechumbl

Hi all,

You guys are missing my point.

Why O/C insanely when it hardly affects the time per frame, that's all.

We can talk heat, etc, forever, but the bottom line is, it is such a small amount of time difference, that it is not worth the higher heat issues, simple as that.

Sure, O/C will drop 2 years off of a 10 year CPU, but who cares. We always upgrade, as was said, every 6 months or so anyway.

Again, this thread was to ask why O/C to the limit, other than bragging rights, when is does not affect the PPD much.

Take care and thanx for the discussion........

For me, again everyone will to a degree have a different answer, it boils down to it does give me a performance boost while gaming and TBH it is easier to simply overclock my system and have it set, for everything rather than increasing my clocks when gaming.
I fold but I also game so while I might not see a difference in PPD i do see a difference in gaming and dont want to have to reset my clocks everytime I want to game.

EDIT: Now if the oc doesnt net you any benefits (IE surfing for one) for what you are using it for then I have to agree why bother with the added heat and power consumption.
I use my rig for more than just folding so OCing them does net me performance, now if that rig was dedicated folder that was only folding and the ppd increase from a OC was negligible then yes why.

[stoanee]

Why? Because I can.......

For me, one hundred more ppd makes me happy as long as the overclock is within MY parameters.


Only you can settle at what keeps you happy.

Cheers!