What is an overclocker. A short explanatory dictionary of a cool overclocker Who is an overclocker

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Let's digress a little from running around the computer with a fan and a soldering iron, move aside the dewar with liquid nitrogen, cover the old coil from the refrigerator, adapted for water cooling, or reduce the speed of the cooler fan to a decent 60-70 dB.) And laugh a little at the people who are considering your computer solely as a symbol of your coolness. Sometimes, to make their system even more impressive, they start Overclocking. This work is dedicated to them ...

Review of computer terms in terms of involvement in overclocking and coolness

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Mother, mother, motherboard, motherboard - the main device in the computer. It is intended for sticking all other devices and stones into it. Coolness is determined by the price, the friendliness of the manufacturer, the amount of precious metal applied and the overclocking capabilities.

Hands are the main overclocking tool. Toughness is defined by the degree of straightness or curvature. At the initial stage of overclocking, the degree of curvature is increased, with an increase in the number of curved boards, it decreases, which, however, does not exclude the possibility of its repeated abrupt growth.

Stone, processor - the main object of overclocking. Coolness is determined by frequency, cache size, manufacturer and overclockability. Has nothing to do with construction.

Even at the dawn of the era of personal computers, the most demanding users were looking for ways to increase system performance.

In fact, "overclocking" appeared even before personal computers, in the days of simpler devices, but the legends about 8 MHz 8088 processors overclocked to 12 Mhz by simply changing the crystal frequency gave impetus to this phenomenon.
Later, overclockers were divided into two camps: the majority, looking for high performance on a small budget, and the minority, in search of absolute power - at any cost.

Before we dive into the intricacies, the newly minted overclocker does not hurt to explain a few things.
What is overclocking?
What are the risks and benefits?
What can you overclock?

Concept

Overclocking means increasing the performance of any component beyond the manufacturer's stated limits.
The word "clock" comes from "clock crystal", a quartz crystal that sets the tempo from which the higher frequencies are generated for the component to operate.

The simplest devices operated at the frequency of this crystal.
Thus, an 8 MHz processor required an 8 MHz crystal.
Overclocking early processors was simple and limited at the same time - it was only necessary to replace the 8 MHz crystal with its 12 MHz analog.

Due to the development of computers, a single crystal could no longer provide the wide frequency range required for the operation of all kinds of data buses.
While motherboards may have multiple dies for specific devices, additional IC was required to provide a wider frequency range for a variety of interfaces.

This circuit, more commonly known as a reference frequency generator, produces frequencies that are multiples of the crystal frequency.
Reference clock generators have become so sophisticated that new motherboards and some other components are capable of changing frequencies in extremely small steps.

The advantage of reference oscillators is that they allow you to overclock components without replacing parts such as quartz crystals.
Further development of BIOS and firmware has led to the fact that nowadays you can change the speed of devices even without setting jumpers.

Benefits and risks

Overclocking allows lower-end components to achieve the performance of their more expensive siblings, or develop a good quality model beyond the capabilities of the best models.

For example, a 3.0 GHz Pentium 4 at 3.4 GHz performs approximately the same as the more expensive Pentium 4 3.4 GHz.
Anyone who overclocked their processor in this way has a glimpse into the future of the Pentium 4!

The main risks of overclocking are instability and the likelihood of data loss. Both the first and the second can be avoided by extensive testing to find the highest stable frequency.
Dr. Thomas Pabst, also known as Tom, founder of Tom’s Hardware Guide, said most accurately:

“No one likes system freezes and crashes, but in a professional business environment, avoiding system failures is critical.
It is a fact that you increase the likelihood of system crashes when overclocking the processor.
But this is just a probability!

If you just overclocked your system and sat down to write your doctoral dissertation first, do not be surprised if you lose all data due to a system crash.
After you've overclocked your computer, you should do a hard and comprehensive system check.
Only after the computer has passed all the tests can we talk about successful overclocking and be sure that everything works well. "

The Prime95 stability test has become the gold standard for testing processor stability.

The most significant of the secondary risks is damage to PC components.
The higher the overclocking values, the higher the risk of component damage.
But risk assessment is not as straightforward as many overclockers believe.

The harmful factors are listed below, in order from least to most harmful:

Speed - Integrated circuits have a limited life cycle: each operation reduces the life of the device by an infinitely small period, but doubling the number of operations per second will shorten the life of the device by half.
This negative impact alone is not enough to "break" a component before it becomes obsolete, but speed also increases heat generation.

Warmly - Integrated circuits wear out faster at high temperatures.
Heat is also the enemy of stability, so low temperatures are needed to achieve maximum speed with stable operation.

Voltage - Overvoltage increases signal strength, which has a huge impact on how the component can be overclocked, but overvoltage also wears out the ICs.

Therefore, it is the most common cause of failures.
The increased voltage increases the temperature of the component, necessitating improvements to the cooling system.

Aging of microcircuits is caused by a phenomenon called electromigration.
Tom has something to say about it again:

“Electromigration occurs in the silicon chip of your processor, in areas operating at very high temperatures and can cause irreparable harm to it.
Before you start to panic, be aware of a few things.

The processors are designed to operate in temperatures ranging from -25 to 80 degrees Celsius.
To make it clearer for you, if the temperature of an object is 80 degrees Celsius, then no one can touch it for more than 1/10 of a second.
I have never seen a processor with such temperature.

There are tons of ways to keep the temperature of the processor case below 50 degrees Celsius, which increases the likelihood that the temperature inside it will be below 80 degrees.
Also, electromigration does not immediately damage your processor.

This is a very slow process and will more or less shorten the life cycle of a processor operating at very high temperatures.
A normal processor should last about 10 years.

Yet in 10 years no one will be using processors with today's technology.
I will never use a processor for more than two months.

If you want to free yourself from the fear of electromigration, do your best to cool the processor.
Cooling is the first overclocking tool!
Never forget about it! "

Progress does not stand still, and yesterday an advanced computer starts to lag behind newer rivals today. A little more time will pass, and it will become hopelessly outdated, it will be problematic to work on it in modern, resource-intensive applications and many new products in the world of computer games will have to be abandoned.

Because of this, it is not at all necessary to buy a new computer every 2-3 years, especially when there is not a lot of money to buy. If you wish, you can squeeze a little more power out of a beginner to lag behind the time of the computer. This is where overclocking.

Overclocking is certain user actions that can slightly increase PC performance... Its main components are:

• increasing the voltage that is applied to the computer components;
• overclocking the bus or memory frequency;
• updating drivers.

And the most important feature of overclocking is that this method of increasing PC power is absolutely free. You don't need to spend money on all this, just devote a little free time.

How does overclocking work?

Many people ask the question: processors have the same frequency, but they can still be, why do they not immediately have such characteristics? In fact, the answer here is quite simple - this is a kind of safety margin of the equipment so that it can work stably and trouble-free throughout the entire line of service.

Accordingly, with the help of overclocking, we force the hardware of our computer to work at the limit. Therefore, there is a certain risk that the user will overdo it with power and burn something. But if you strictly follow all the recommendations, then this will not happen.

Overclocking in theory

Let's take a closer look at what each of the components of overclocking is. We'll start by increasing the voltage on certain parts of the computer. Why can increased stress increase productivity? Imagine a small electric motor, we connect one battery to it, and it rotates, and now we connect two batteries at once, and it will start rotating many times faster. The same thing happens with a computer, more stress makes it work much more productively. You just need to understand that a processor, or a video card, is not a simple motor, but rather expensive products. If too much voltage is applied, above a certain limit, they can quickly fail. So, be careful and follow all the necessary guidelines. In the next overclocking article, we'll take a closer look at this procedure and show in practice how it's done.

The next method is to increase the operating system bus frequency. This is a fairly simple yet effective way to add power to your PC. Here we will change the parameters of the motherboard settings. This type of overclocking has three main areas:

1. increasing the operating frequency using a special DIP switch on the board itself;
2. overclocking via BIOS;
3. use to increase the operating frequency.

In the first case, you need to use a special switch on the motherboard (it is found on all boards). The second method is a little more complicated, here you will need to make certain settings in the BIOS settings. In the third case, you will need to use special utilities that will help you overclock the bus. Perhaps this is the most convenient of the listed options. We'll take a closer look at them and show them clearly in the next overclocking articles.

The last way is to install newer drivers. The main purpose of drivers is to ensure correct and adequate interaction between different devices and the operating system. Newer drivers tend to run much faster because they fix many of the old ones and implement more modern concepts. All drivers can be downloaded from the websites of equipment manufacturers.

Don't forget about cooling

Even if you carry out quite reasonable overclocking, the computer will still warm up seriously. If you don’t want to warm up breakfast on your system unit every morning and burn all the components ahead of time, then arrange good cooling for all unheated parts.

There are three main types of PC cooling: air, water and using special Peltier elements. In general, every computer is already initially equipped with a cooling system and, as a rule, air. It consists of a radiator mounted on a heating element and a cooler that drives air through this radiator. One of the best manufacturers of air cooling elements is Zalman. Their products, although a little more expensive, are much more reliable than competitors and have a high level of performance. Water cooling is very popular among some overclockers. It is less reliable and more capricious in operation, but at the same time it allows you to achieve much better results and more efficient cooling. The use of Peltier elements is a very rare and expensive method, among the disadvantages of which is the formation of condensation. So few people dare to shell out a tidy sum for such a cooling system and then suffer with its adjustment.

Overclocking and Android devices

In the world of mobile gadgets, time moves even faster and when very weighty applications, games and even just HD movies are released for new ones, early models can no longer keep up with the agility of their more modern colleagues.

One of the most popular mobile platforms has long boasted quite serious capabilities and wide functionality. For Android, there are ways to overclock and overclock the processor of a mobile device to higher performance levels. But always remember that such an operation involves a certain risk for the device. In addition, the drain on the battery may increase.

The overclocking process for Android is very similar to overclocking a regular computer. Mobile devices have more heat-resistant processors and are more difficult to burn, but still possible, so be careful! Overclocking should be carried out no more than 20% of the device's power. Believe me, the difference will be noticeable, but as already mentioned, now you will have to charge the battery much more often.

The discharge rate will directly depend on the use of the device at its full capacity (during games, for example). This is due to the fact that after overclocking the device, a completely unstable frequency will be set for the processor, but only its limit value. The device will switch to a higher clock speed only when using very "heavy" applications, games, videos that require more power. In all other cases, the gadget will use the nominal processor performance.

The overclocking process requires performing certain actions on the device itself:

1. make a backup copy of all data on the gadget, and copy data from ROM;
2. we get, on the device, administrator rights;
3. install a special firmware assembly designed for overclocking;
4. turn off USB debugging.

Also, as tools, we need a normal computer, with all the drivers to work with the device, a USB cable to connect to the gadget, and a special overclocking application ( IncrediControl, SetCPU). And most importantly - be sure to fully charge the device, it should not turn off during the entire procedure.

I also suggest watching an entertaining video on overclocking the processor:

• ClockGen (Temporarily unavailable)

To monitor an overclocked system, the following are most often used:

• - basic information about computer components
• Native Specialist - Complete Information About AMD64 Processors
• NextSensor - temperature and voltage monitoring

Most modern video adapters support changing the clock speeds of the GPU (video processor) from the operating system. The latest versions of ATI and NVIDIA video adapter drivers provide the ability to overclock video cards without resorting to third-party utilities. To overclock popular models of video adapters from under Windows OS, the following utilities are used:

• - overclocking and stability testing of NVIDIA video cards
• ATI Tool - overclocking and stability testing of ATI video cards, you can also test the stability of NVIDIA video cards
• ATI Tray Tools - overclocking and stability testing of ATI video cards
• Furmark - aka "donut" - stability testing. loads the system to the maximum, it is not recommended to use it even in normal modes with weak power supplies.

From third-party utilities for overclocking and tuning the video subsystem, we can single out the popular Powerstrip program, which supports many video cards from different manufacturers.

Overclocking RAM (random access memory)

Direct overclocking of RAM is reduced either to increasing the nominal operating frequency of memory chips (MEMCLK), or to changing the delays of the main control signals - sync pulses or "timings" (from English timings), such as tCAS #, tRAS #, tRCD # and others. To achieve higher memory operating frequencies, taking into account stable operation, as a rule, the nominal operating voltage on the memory modules (VDDIO) is increased. Changing the values \u200b\u200bof the MEMCLK frequency and clock pulses is possible in the BIOS Setup of the motherboard or from under Windows OS using the appropriate programs, for example, Brain Identifier, AMD OverDrive (for AMD64 processors) MemSet (Intel).

To permanently fix the changed values \u200b\u200bof the time-frequency operating parameters, it is necessary to resort to partial reprogramming of the SPD (Serial Presence Detect) content of the EPROM chip of the memory module. For these purposes, either hardware or software is used. The latter is the simplest and does not require any additional devices and programming devices. Overwriting and editing of SPD data of the EPROM microcircuit, as well as upgrading of firmware with EPP and XMP profiles, memory modules of the SDRAM architecture, DDR SDRAM, DDR2 SDRAM and DDR3 SDRAM is carried out using the Thaiphoon Burner utility.

Stability criterion for overclocked components

The main criterion for the stability of overclocked computer components is their ability to withstand any computational load with a statistical probability of producing an error in calculations that does not exceed that for components that are in normal operation. Since in most cases the computational load on computer components is much less than the potential computational power, special tests are used to detect errors in the operation of overclocked components (instability).

Improving the stability of an overclocked system

To increase the stability of overclocked systems, an increase in supply voltages is used (and, as a result, an increase in the supplied and dissipated powers), as well as an improvement in heat removal (cooling) and a decrease in temperature.

Increasing supply voltages from BIOS

The BIOS of most modern motherboards allows you to change the supply voltages of the processor (VCore, VCPU parameters), the north bridge from the motherboard chipset (Vdd parameter), and memory modules (Vdimm, Vmem parameters). It should be remembered that an increase in voltage, especially with insufficient cooling, can cause a computer component to fail.

Increasing supply voltages by volt mod

Sometimes the voltage adjustment range provided by the motherboard is not enough. In this case, as well as to control the power supply voltages of the graphics processor and the memory of the video adapters, they resort to modifying the supply circuits (volt-modification, volt-mode from the English. voltage modification - voltage change). To do this, design changes are made to the power supply circuit that lead to an increase in voltages at the outputs of these circuits. Often, for volt modification, it is enough to change the resistor value in the power circuit.

There are also commercially available devices for modifying the supply voltages of computer components.

Cooling systems used by overclockers

Air cooling systems

Air cooling in an overclocked system

The vast majority of overclockers use the most affordable air cooling systems. They are based on a classic radiator or cooler.

Radiators They are usually used for cooling memory chips and motherboard chipsets, since they have rather modest heat sink capabilities. There are exceptions (for example, the Ninja heatsink made by Scythe), when a heatsink with a developed heat exchange surface can be used to cool an overclocked CPU.

Coolersused by overclockers, most often have a developed heat exchange surface (exceeding 3000 cm 2), and can also be equipped with large (more than 80 mm) fans, heat pipes, thermoelectric elements (Peltier element) or other devices that increase the power that the cooler is able to dissipate.

Homemade SVO

Famous brands of coolers used by overclockers:

Liquid cooling systems

The second place in popularity is occupied by liquid cooling systems, the main heat carrier in which is liquid. Most commonly used water cooling systems (CBO), in which the working fluid is water (distilled, often with various additives of anti-corrosion nature). A typical CBO consists of a water block (water block, from the English. waterblock), in which heat is transferred from the processor to the coolant, a pump that pumps water through a closed loop of the system, a radiator, where heat is transferred from the coolant to the air, a reservoir (serves to fill the water cooling system with water and other service needs) and connecting hoses.

One of the options for liquid cooling of computers is to immerse the entire computer or its components in oil (suggested by Tom's Hardware Guide).

Other (extreme) cooling systems

To cool computer components overclocked to frequencies close to the technological limit, can be used extreme cooling systems... These include systems using liquid nitrogen, dry ice, various refrigerants (such as freon), and cascade cooling systems. In most cases, their creators are not able to ensure the long-term functioning of extreme cooling systems, so their usual use is to get maximum results in benchmarks and participate in various overclocking competitions.

Checking the stability of overclocked components

To check the stability of overclocked computer components, a number of software tests are used. None of them by itself guarantee 100% system stability, however, if the test reveals a failure in the system or cannot pass to the end, the overclocking should be considered unsuccessful. Most benchmarks place an intensive computational load on various blocks of the CPU, system memory, GPU, and system logic set. Only a combination of several tests can serve as a basis for confidence in the stable operation of a computer. Here are some of the more popular stability tests.

An overclocker is a user who makes his PC work to the limit. Such an improvement significantly reduces its service life. Even the use of a cooling system does not help.

An overclocker is a person who overestimates the frequency of the central processor several times higher than his capabilities according to his passport. You can "overclock" the car by increasing the applied voltage, memory or bus frequency, and installing new drivers.

The need for overclocking appears when a car bought several years ago is outdated, and there is no way to change it for a new desire and opportunity. And then the overclocker artificially improves the performance of his PC. What are the types of "overclocking" In the factory form, the manufacturer produces all the necessary components himself, slightly increasing their parameters. Custom overclocking involves only the overclocker himself. Everything here will depend on the capabilities of the user and his desires. He can choose a minimum of parameters that are responsible for overclocking, or stop at automatic overclocking, acting through the software or BIOS of the motherboard. This overclocking assumes increasing the system bus frequency without changing other settings. With a reasonable method, the user significantly increases the clock speeds, without reaching the limit values. In this case, the machine can work for a long time in this mode, and without stopping. To translate desires into reality, both bios and software methods can be used. Or, without further ado, arm yourself with a soldering iron and change the clock generator frequency, multipliers of secondary devices accelerating along with the bus, processor voltage, its architecture and special parameters of a certain chipset. In addition, the frequency of the RAM, depending on the system bus, and the timings can be changed. Often the resulting "oven" requires a reliable cooling system. With extreme overclocking, the overclocker increases the parameters of the computer to exorbitant values. Here you definitely cannot do without a cooling system. For these purposes, freon cooling, liquid vacuum, liquid helium, liquid nitrogen, cascade systems and others are used. But even this will not save the car from having to replace the burned iron. The other side of the coin This technical improvement requires an increase in tension. Together with an increase in temperature, the lifespan of a PC decreases in direct proportion to the increase. Therefore, after a few years of such work, you will have to buy a new computer.