Is Overclocking Over? 405
MrSeb writes "Earlier this week, an ExtremeTech writer received a press release from a Romanian overclocking team that smashed a few overclocking records, including pushing Kingston's HyperX DDR3 memory to an incredible 3600MHz (at CL10). The Lab501 team did this, and their other record breakers, with the aid of liquid nitrogen which cooled the RAM down to a frosty -196C. That certainly qualifies as extreme, but is it news? Ten years ago, overclocking memory involved a certain amount of investigation, research, and risk, but in these days of super-fast RAM and manufacturer's warranties it seems a less intoxicating prospect. As it becomes increasingly difficult to justify what a person should overclock for, has the enthusiast passion for overclocking cooled off?"
It's not dead, it's fun! (Score:5, Informative)
For me, It's fun and I could care less what some dude did with liquid nitrogen.
First computer, I just used Asus Overclock and felt I got more for my money.
Second computer, I started fiddling with manual settings.
Third computer I pushed it until I couldn't get rid of the heat with air cooling.
Fourth and current computer, water cooled and running awesome (6 cores at 4.3 GHz).
Each time I felt the progress, it's like leveling your character, but the character is you, and the game is real life!
Most people don't understand that it's a bad idea. (Score:5, Informative)
Look, digital electronics are still subject to analog limitations. When you overclock, you squeeze the hysterisis curve, increasing the probability that your chip incorrectly interprets its the state of a particular bit as the opposite value. i.e. you get random data corruption. This is why you eventually start crashing randomly the more you overclock.
While overclocking a chip that has been conservatively binned simply to reduce manufacturing costs but is actually stable at higher clock rates is reasonable, trying to overclock past the design limits is pretty insane if you care at all about the data integrity. Also, you tend to burn out the electronics earlier than their expected life due to increased heat stress.
I never overclock.
Competitive Overclocking != all Overclocking (Score:5, Informative)
That's like saying competitive soccer going broke would impact on EVERYONE EVER from playing soccer with their friends.
Not everyone overclocks to beat a record.
Hell, "overclock" a toaster if you have to. 2 second cold toast anyone? (the best toast)
But really, there are still plenty of things you can overclock to beat records, such as what iB1 mentioned up there, overclock a smartphone or tablet.
Overclock a Beagleboard, or a Raspberry Pi when it comes out, Arduinos. All these compact computers are pretty much sitting around waiting to be hit by the overclocking spirit.
No (Score:4, Informative)
No. Next question.
Seriously though, both Intel and AMD sell multiplier-unlocked CPUs as a feature, and the winners of tests in PC Pro magazine are overclocked by the system builder. You can even buy upgrade bundles pre-overclocked. My latest motherboard came with one-click overclocking software and can adjust the clock speed through a web page while playing a game. Liquid coolers are mainstream. Overclocking is definitely not dead.
Huh, no (Score:4, Informative)
"has the enthusiast passion for overclocking cooled off"
Not from my 5.0Ghz Core i7 2600k anyway -- The tools have become better, the mobo are generally better built and more tolerant to punishment (some have 2 Oz copper), the power rails are a LOT more controllable than before, and in general the IC companies that make the power ICs have progressed a lot too in that time, so you can overclock easier, quicker, get better results and in general, extract quite a bit more, without nitrogen.
And, I compile distros all day, to me going from 3.8Ghz max to 5.0Ghz stable (and quiet!) is awesome; make -j10 FTW !
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
Your logic is wrong.
Every time a FET switches, it requires a certain number of electrons to move to or from the gate to create an electric field in the substrate to open or close a conducting pathway. This is a current flowing through a reistance and it dissipates power as heat. Assuming that the leakage current on the gate is very small compared to the switching current, the energy required to switch the FET (call it Es) is constant regardless of the clock speed. So the power dissipated by each FET (call it Pf) is:
Pf = Es x fc
where fc is the clock frequency in Hertz.
Why do you suppose that frequency scaling is an effective way of saving power?
Huge difference for game development (Score:5, Informative)
Well let me dig up my test results spreadsheet from when I first got my 2500K CPU, times are in seconds to complete my task in Visual Studio 2010, first set of numbers is the system at stock clock, second set is overclocked at 5GHz, during my game development most of my day consists of building the game, loading the game and testing out changes or additions, therefore the reduction from doing that in 32s vs 21s is absolutely huge, even doing code changes that don't require a total rebuild I am waiting 3s less. It may not sound like a lot but when you are focused any time saved is very important, you can only be focused for so long.
build debug from clean 12.9 6.9
built already, go and load all effects and units 8.2 5.6
at title screen all loaded, start medium map 19.6 14.3
modify main.h build load to splash scrn 3.4 2.1
modify main.h load into medium map 31.9 20.9
modify main.h optimal load no sound, small map 16.9 10.3
running in game, modify main.h apply changes 10 6.7
average 14.7 9.5
system is 2500K, C300 SSD, 16GB memory
Re:It's not dead, it's fun! (Score:1, Informative)
You must be new here. Americans say "could care less" when they mean "couldn't care less". They spell "colour" without the "u", too, and say "sidewalk" instead of "pavement".
I'm not aware of any dialect of English in which people say "could care less" to mean "I care about this somewhat", which is obviously what "could care less" actually means.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
In fact I've read a lot more bullshit here but to address one more thing in specific: Most modern devices are made using CMOS technology or at the very least using FETs. A common misconception I see here is people assuming that CMOS devices use power while in a stable state. The fact is, they don't if they're well designed; The power being used is to charge the gates of the FETs. Once they're charged the only power use is to compensate for leakage currents from the FET gates to other parts of the substrate. If you don't believe me, build a small circuit using FETs (think something like a bunch of flip-flops), switch it a bit at a fairly high frequency. Stop the clock. Put a capacitor over your power supply. Then disconnect the circuit so its powered from the capacitor. It'll keep its state for weeks most likely.
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry that you have barely passed EE 101 a week ago. The information you have is very inaccurate and quite outdated.
In modern CMOS geometries, a large amount of power is wasted on leakage. That means that while the dynamic power scales linearly with frequency (at a constant voltage), the static power (leakage) does not.
However, if you *can* overclock significantly at a constant voltage, there probably is power headroom the manufacturer did not use properly, or expected the devices to be unreliable with reduced voltage at the original frequency. Dynamic voltage scaling is not new.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)
Re:No (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, voltage matters substantially.
The gate of a FET is effectively a capacitor. Even with the FET in the on state, if you keep increasing the gate voltage it'll still keep taking electrons. And like a capacitor, energy stored in a FET gate = 1/2*C*V^2. You also have source/drain and gate/drain (miller) capacitance - source/drain has to be discharged (another 1/2CV^2 loss) and the miller capacitance has to be discharged and then charged at the opposite polarity (a CV^2 loss).
Overall, neglecting leakage current, power loss is proportional to frequency, but it's also proportional to voltage squared.
Power loss is also proportional to transistor count, which is why ARM is such a low power processor.
Re:It's not dead, it's fun! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's not dead, it's fun! (Score:5, Informative)
No, "I couldn't care less" means "it's not possible to care even less than I already do, even if I wanted to". It means I care the least possible amount. I have reached the bottom.
"I could care less" (but I don't, meaning that I do care a certain amount) means that there is still a margin between the amount I care and the least possible amount of care. I haven't reached the bottom. Nothing is said about the size of that margin, so this statement really doesn't say anything.
Re:No (Score:4, Informative)