What is Overclocking a Computer? All You Need to Know About It.

Many people probably don't know what overclocking is but have possibly heard the term used before. To put it in its simplest terms, overclocking is taking a computer component such as a processor and running at a specification higher than rated by the manufacturer. Every part produced by companies such as Intel and AMD are rated for specific speeds. They have tested the capabilities of the part and certified it for that given speed.

Of course, most parts are underrated for increased reliability. Overclocking a part simply takes advantage of the remaining potential out of a computer part that the manufacturer is unwilling to certify the part for but it is capable of.

 

It is the dark heart forcing your electronics to perform better than the manufacturer intended. Computer CPU’s tablet, phone and any other modern computing devices you own have processors inside them that all have something in common. Their performance is dictated by the design or architecture and the number of cycles that they can perform per second which is usually represented as frequency or clock speed. This is where the term overclocking comes from.

You are taking the clock speed and turning it up over the manufacturer’s recommendation to get more performance. Clock speed is not the only factor so it is not like you can overclock a calculator to perform as well as a gaming PC, but can make the calculator faster relative to its original state.

How to Overclock your CPU

Before you learn how to overclock your CPU, there's a few basic principles to get your head around. The first one is heat. Inevitably, the more voltage you add to your components, the more heat that component is going to produce.

Second, the higher the clock speed you're trying to achieve, the more voltage you will need to power that attempt. Makes enough sense.

And thirdly, there's only so much voltage your PC part can take before you start to see detrimental effects. These could be a drop in frame rates for GPUs, corrupting processes on the CPU, or even a failure to boot at all.

 These, essentially, are the basic limits of overclocking. All chips are born equal, but some are more equal than others. You'll often hear overclockers talk of "The Silicon Lottery." In short, this is to do with the manufacturing process with each and every processor.Small imperfections in the application of the silicon lead to a variance in how well the chips perform, both in stability with an increase in voltage, and how much heat they produce at max load. You might get lucky with yours, or you might not.

It can equate from anywhere between 0.2GHz frequency difference to, in some cases, up to 1GHz in overclocking potential.Many Android phones can be overclocked with a simple app download, and PC overclocking is a very popular pastime with gamers, video editors or anyone else who needs more performance from his or her computer.