OVERCLOCKING SCHOOL
I
watched a video not too long ago, where
a tech guru was explaining overclocking
to his followers, supposedly the layman.
In his explanation he said a lot of thing about
overclocking which were true but in all of that,
he said that overclocking has no purpose or
place in today’s computing environment. He
went on to explain the risks, and all that is
supposedly involved with overclocking and in
essence was deterring people or at least his
followers from getting into it.
I sat and thought about what I had just
watched in contrast to what I’ve been seeing
and obviously what took place at COMPUTEX
2014. It dawned on me that many people
who may have had some limited exposure
to overclocking have not understood that it
has evolved. It has become something that
exists to primarily serve itself, but has huge
and practical benefits as well outside of just
being a hobby.
For instance, while it’s true that most
overclockers started out as gamers and
many remain so. The average competitive
overclocker is vastly more adept at electronics
than say the average gamer is at
programming. The intention was not to be an
expert at electronics or anything of the sort,
but inevitably at some point or another you’ll
find yourself with a soldering iron at the very
least. A soldering iron, some trimmers and
a DMM are the fundemental tools that every
overclocker who has ever been competitive
owns. Add to that, a temp probe; others get
oscilloscopes, heck some even go on to get
full re-work machines (aka ViVi and such)
amongst many other things.
The difference between overclocking
and gaming is that, while both have similar
challenges and both are immense fun
and frustration at the same time. When
overclocking, you learn a lot about a related
industry without even knowing it. When
you’re gaming, you’re not at any point
pressed to become a programmer. You can
game competitively and casually without
ever having written a single “Hello Word”
program. Some gamers go on to become
phenomenal programmers, artists and level
designers as history has shown this before,
but it is not a requirement at any level. With
overclocking - as stated before - this is
an inevitable part of the hobby that you will
find yourself faced with.
The tools of the trade almost always require
you to learn basic, rudimentary electronics
even if you didn’t take a class in middle, high
school or college. You’ll experience and put
to use Ohm’s law before you even know how
to write it. To follow any one of TiN’s guides
for example will require you to know a little
electronics and know how to use a soldering
iron. The same goes for many other guides and even
overclocking guides that are highly detailed such as Sin’s
guides.
There’s no real difference between motherboards in a
gaming context that cannot be eliminated by buying the
right piece of hardware or software. For example if you
buy a cheap Z97 motherboard from any one of the lesser
motherboard vendors, you’ll have to do without decent,
audio. No dedicated LAN controller, fewer USB ports,
etc. There are several things you’ll have to sacrifice,
but it’s nothing a Creative or ASUS audio card can’t fix.
A Killer NIC card will get you those uninterrupted
low latency gaming sessions and you can always buy a
USB adapter as well.
You may still have a crappy BIOS, but since you’re
gaming you’ll not likely ever spend any time within the BIOS.
This isn’t true for overclocking; where a sub-standard
motherboard will hinder you from any useful scores and
prevent you from being competitive. This goes for graphics
card, memory, a PSU and what have you.
Like cars are not from getting from point A to point B
anymore and we have F1 racing. Overclocking is exactly
that, it has nothing to do with browsing e-mail, watching
movies, and working on spreadsheets. It’s far removed from
any of that. Overclocking is being at the cutting edge,
pushing for hundredths of a second, ever going faster in an
attempt to get to the top. With all of that comes the benefits
of increasingly better, PSUs, better motherboards, more
reliable products, processors, better energy
efficiency and a whole list of other things.
How much a Gaming keyboard or mouse helps a team
win a game or series of games is subjective, most certainly
the best equipment will always help. With overclocking
however, the results will speak for themselves in scores and
frequencies. There’s no two ways about it. The best memory
overclocking motherboard is the one that does the highest
frequency more reliably. It’s simple but definitely not easy.
Thus, overclocking may be self-serving, but its benefits and
merits are so much more that we haven’t even begun to
imagine where it can go. So to all overclockers, amateurs
and pros alike, I say to you “keep pushing”. We have so much
farther to go, as this is only the beginning.”
[ Neo Sibeko - Editor ]
Issue 30 | 2014 The OverClocker 3