This is the most true of all and many overclockers don't know this.
Each time electrons flow through transistors they are able to damage the tiny miniature gates, but it's usually not enough to have a noticable effect, if you overclock your CPU however, the damage is far greater because of the increased heat that is coming from the increased voltage you're applying to overclock, even if you cool your CPU more, the damage is still greater than if you didn't OC your CPU at all and kept the temperature lower.
So you have an i7 and cross fire 6990? Try to overclock in 2 or 3 years, because at the moment you will be able to play every game at max settings with 30+++ FPS. Your PC consumes far too much power already, by overlocking it u r just raising ur bills every month.
do not overclock - there is REALLY no need. You could remove one of the GFXcards, which would make more sense than OC.
Thanks, I respecc'ed my compy based on some suggestions. One of the things I told them to do was turn the overclocking off. From what I've read in this thread, I can always turn it on later if need be. Based on what people have said about my system specs, I don't think I need to overclock at this time.
As for building my own computer. I did it a while back. Was a pain in the tookess. However, I will read up on overclocking and get my knowledge up to speed.
Thx again
Overclocking isnt really something you can "turn on", its more of tweaking various settings, which can take hours to find your "sweet spot" and then testing the final OC for at least 12 hours , however with a 2600k it will be plenty fast for gaming and apps.
unless your really doing alot of cpu intensive things i would look into OC'ing it at a later time, especially if it will cost you abit more for them to do it.
If you dont mind me asking what is the seller & final specs your going with?, i wasnt sure if Quizzical's build was the one you were going with.
I went with most of what he said, I upgraded a few things. I am kind of funny that way. If I'm going to spend this kind of rediculous money, I either don't do it, or I go overboard. Another failing of mine, is that I gotta have the newest. So he gave me a very good grafix card, I just had to get the latest. It shouldn't be taken that I know better than Quiz, its just my own idiosyrcosy. Spelling is awful.
BLUETOOTH:None
CARE1:CoolerMaster Thermal Fusion 400 Extreme Performance CPU - Thermal Compound Optimized for Thermal Dissipation [+10]
CARE2:Professional Wiring for All WIRING Inside The System Chassis - Minimize Cable Exposure, Maximize Airflow in Your System [+19]
CAS:* CoolerMaster Storm Trooper Full Tower Gaming Case w/ 200mm Fan, Integrated Fan Controller, Front USB 3.0 & X-Dock, and Easy Carry Handle [+149]
CS_FAN:Maximum Enermax 120MM Case Cooling Fans for selected case (Maximum Silent Operation) [+29] (1,000 RPM Black Color with No LED Enlobal Magnetic Barometric Bearing 17 dBA)
SOUND:Asus Xonar Essence ST 24-bit 192KHz PCI Sound Card [+199]
SPEAKERS:Creative Labs Gigaworks T20 Series II 2.0 EPS Speakers System [+122]
TEMP:NZXT Sentry LX Aluminum High Performance Fan Control, Clock, & Temperature Display [+69]
TVRC:None
USB:None
USBFLASH:None
USBHD:None
USBX:NZXT Internal USB 6-PORT Expansion Module + USB Bluetooth 2.X EDR Dongle with Led Light Thumb Size [+29]
VIDEO:AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [+721] (Major Brand Powered by AMD)
VIDEO2:AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [+780] (Major Brand Powered by AMD)
VIDEO3:None
WNC:None
*shakes head*
Man, I tried to go somewhat excessive on the build I gave you. Let's talk about the "upgrades" that you made.
You know what the difference between a Core i7 2600K and 2700K is? Intel takes a 2600K, overclocks it by 100 MHz for you, and calls it a 2700K. And then charges an extra $50 for it. You can do that yourself by changing the CPU multiplier from 34 to 35 in the BIOS, without changing any other settings. If you know what you're doing, it takes maybe 10 or 20 seconds. If you don't and have to sift through settings, it takes a few minutes.
There is no plausible gaming purpose for which you will need more than 8 GB of memory in the useful life of the machine. Going with 16 GB was already excessive. 32 GB is simply nuts. And expensive. Even the prefetching advantage of tons of memory doesn't accomplish anything, since you're getting a large SSD.
You know what the difference between the Gigabyte -UD4 and -UD7 motherboards are? A bunch of features that you'll never use. Even the -UD4 is already excessive. And a lot of the extra features are stuff like, the -UD4 has two of something, the -UD7 has four of it, hardly anyone will ever use more than one, and you'll personally use none.
The Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590 are both dual GPU video cards, and very hard to cool. The GeForce is much worse about this than the Radeon here. You have to design the whole system around it, and what I picked for you didn't. Two Radeon HD 6970s is already excessive if you're not going to run a 3+ monitor Eyefinity setup.
Even apart from that, four GPUs aren't necessarily better than two, as a lot of work is put into the video card drivers for a two GPU CrossFire system, while much less is put into a 4 GPU system, as hardly anyone ever gets it. From a reliability standpoint, I'd rather have the two 6970s than the two 6990s, even if the price tag were the same.
Don't get that power supply. Even if you do insist on two Radeon HD 6990s in quad CrossFireX, you'd need something stronger. Try the Corsair AX1200 for that. And if you do drop back down to the 6970s, then the Corsair AX850 is a better power supply than the Thermaltake Toughpower 1000 W. A lot better. It's not just the nominal wattage.
Most people think onboard sound is plenty good enough. The only real reason to get a $200 sound card for a gaming system is if you have some fancy speaker setup that onboard sound can't handle. And if you are the sort of audiophile to get that, you should probably be buying the sound equipment separately.
You know what the difference between Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional is? A bunch of features you'll never use. Basically, Microsoft looked at the feature set and said, what are the features that no home user would ever plausibly use? We'll take those out of the Home Premium edition and restrict them to the Professional edition, as a way to make businesses pay an extra $35.
In your case, Home Premium doesn't allow more than 16 GB of memory, but you shouldn't get more than 16 GB of memory, anyway.
I could understand buying Microsoft Office if you'll use that software a lot. But Office Professional? The only things that has that a cheaper version doesn't is Publisher and Access. Access is a database program. I don't even know what Publisher is. If you'll use that software, go ahead and buy it, but unless you're a lot more sophisticated than you're letting on, you'll probably never even run it.
Thanks, I respecc'ed my compy based on some suggestions. One of the things I told them to do was turn the overclocking off. From what I've read in this thread, I can always turn it on later if need be. Based on what people have said about my system specs, I don't think I need to overclock at this time.
As for building my own computer. I did it a while back. Was a pain in the tookess. However, I will read up on overclocking and get my knowledge up to speed.
Thx again
Overclocking isnt really something you can "turn on", its more of tweaking various settings, which can take hours to find your "sweet spot" and then testing the final OC for at least 12 hours , however with a 2600k it will be plenty fast for gaming and apps.
unless your really doing alot of cpu intensive things i would look into OC'ing it at a later time, especially if it will cost you abit more for them to do it.
If you dont mind me asking what is the seller & final specs your going with?, i wasnt sure if Quizzical's build was the one you were going with.
I went with most of what he said, I upgraded a few things. I am kind of funny that way. If I'm going to spend this kind of rediculous money, I either don't do it, or I go overboard. Another failing of mine, is that I gotta have the newest. So he gave me a very good grafix card, I just had to get the latest. It shouldn't be taken that I know better than Quiz, its just my own idiosyrcosy. Spelling is awful.
BLUETOOTH:None
CARE1:CoolerMaster Thermal Fusion 400 Extreme Performance CPU - Thermal Compound Optimized for Thermal Dissipation [+10]
CARE2:Professional Wiring for All WIRING Inside The System Chassis - Minimize Cable Exposure, Maximize Airflow in Your System [+19]
CAS:* CoolerMaster Storm Trooper Full Tower Gaming Case w/ 200mm Fan, Integrated Fan Controller, Front USB 3.0 & X-Dock, and Easy Carry Handle [+149]
CS_FAN:Maximum Enermax 120MM Case Cooling Fans for selected case (Maximum Silent Operation) [+29] (1,000 RPM Black Color with No LED Enlobal Magnetic Barometric Bearing 17 dBA)
SOUND:Asus Xonar Essence ST 24-bit 192KHz PCI Sound Card [+199]
SPEAKERS:Creative Labs Gigaworks T20 Series II 2.0 EPS Speakers System [+122]
TEMP:NZXT Sentry LX Aluminum High Performance Fan Control, Clock, & Temperature Display [+69]
TVRC:None
USB:None
USBFLASH:None
USBHD:None
USBX:NZXT Internal USB 6-PORT Expansion Module + USB Bluetooth 2.X EDR Dongle with Led Light Thumb Size [+29]
VIDEO:AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [+721] (Major Brand Powered by AMD)
VIDEO2:AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB GDDR5 16X PCIe Video Card [+780] (Major Brand Powered by AMD)
VIDEO3:None
WNC:None
*shakes head*
Man, I tried to go somewhat excessive on the build I gave you. Let's talk about the "upgrades" that you made.
You know what the difference between a Core i7 2600K and 2700K is? Intel takes a 2600K, overclocks it by 100 MHz for you, and calls it a 2700K. And then charges an extra $50 for it. You can do that yourself by changing the CPU multiplier from 34 to 35 in the BIOS, without changing any other settings. If you know what you're doing, it takes maybe 10 or 20 seconds. If you don't and have to sift through settings, it takes a few minutes.
There is no plausible gaming purpose for which you will need more than 8 GB of memory in the useful life of the machine. Going with 16 GB was already excessive. 32 GB is simply nuts. And expensive. Even the prefetching advantage of tons of memory doesn't accomplish anything, since you're getting a large SSD.
You know what the difference between the Gigabyte -UD4 and -UD7 motherboards are? A bunch of features that you'll never use. Even the -UD4 is already excessive. And a lot of the extra features are stuff like, the -UD4 has two of something, the -UD7 has four of it, hardly anyone will ever use more than one, and you'll personally use none.
The Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590 are both dual GPU video cards, and very hard to cool. The GeForce is much worse about this than the Radeon here. You have to design the whole system around it, and what I picked for you didn't. Two Radeon HD 6970s is already excessive if you're not going to run a 3+ monitor Eyefinity setup.
Even apart from that, four GPUs aren't necessarily better than two, as a lot of work is put into the video card drivers for a two GPU CrossFire system, while much less is put into a 4 GPU system, as hardly anyone ever gets it. From a reliability standpoint, I'd rather have the two 6970s than the two 6990s, even if the price tag were the same.
Don't get that power supply. Even if you do insist on two Radeon HD 6990s in quad CrossFireX, you'd need something stronger. Try the Corsair AX1200 for that. And if you do drop back down to the 6970s, then the Corsair AX850 is a better power supply than the Thermaltake Toughpower 1000 W. A lot better. It's not just the nominal wattage.
Most people think onboard sound is plenty good enough. The only real reason to get a $200 sound card for a gaming system is if you have some fancy speaker setup that onboard sound can't handle. And if you are the sort of audiophile to get that, you should probably be buying the sound equipment separately.
You know what the difference between Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional is? A bunch of features you'll never use. Basically, Microsoft looked at the feature set and said, what are the features that no home user would ever plausibly use? We'll take those out of the Home Premium edition and restrict them to the Professional edition, as a way to make businesses pay an extra $35.
In your case, Home Premium doesn't allow more than 16 GB of memory, but you shouldn't get more than 16 GB of memory, anyway.
I could understand buying Microsoft Office if you'll use that software a lot. But Office Professional? The only things that has that a cheaper version doesn't is Publisher and Access. Access is a database program. I don't even know what Publisher is. If you'll use that software, go ahead and buy it, but unless you're a lot more sophisticated than you're letting on, you'll probably never even run it.
i'll take another look at my spec. Although, I do use Office professionally and am aware of the various features. I may indeed be a bit more sophisticated than you believe. I dunno
OK, changed the cards down, added the power supply you recommended, and went down to 16GB memory. The site recommends Professional for anything 16 and over so I'm sticking to it.
Thanks for all the help. Probably saved me close to 2k
OK, changed the cards down, added the power supply you recommended, and went down to 16GB memory. The site recommends Professional for anything 16 and over so I'm sticking to it.
Thanks for all the help. Probably saved me close to 2k
Even with a 2K saving I DREAD to think what they are charging you heh !
Glad that you found positive feedback here and hope you enjoy that new rig, it'll scream through anything on the market and I hope it gives you some years of fun !
OK, changed the cards down, added the power supply you recommended, and went down to 16GB memory. The site recommends Professional for anything 16 and over so I'm sticking to it.
Thanks for all the help. Probably saved me close to 2k
Even with a 2K saving I DREAD to think what they are charging you heh !
Glad that you found positive feedback here and hope you enjoy that new rig, it'll scream through anything on the market and I hope it gives you some years of fun !
Thx, I'm hoping it will put me ahead of the next tech cycle, so that I can skip it and still be able to run games for a while.
I bought a i750 system a couple of years ago. I didn't overlcock it, honestly there was no need back then, with a solid video card the PC perfomed well in pretty much every game on my resolution.
I never thought of testing how hot it ran, because, well, the thing was on default settings. A few months ago, for the first time on this PC, I ran a few monitoring utilities - and they all reported a temperature of 45+ on idle and 90+ (Celcius) on heavy load. Now, that's just bad.
I did go and get a good new cooler then (yes, keeping the stock fan was sloppy on my part, but isn't it messed up that stock coolers aren't good for even a default setup these days?)... and the PC's been running for 2 years now, but I'd not be surprised if it broke down on me. I've seen many overlocked systems running much cooler than mine. In fact, ironically, most of them do run cool, just because the overclockers tend to pay attention to this sort of thing.
I guess what I'm saying is, pay attention, and know what you're doing - at least know that people who are putting your PC together know what they're doing! Fit a quality Power Supply Unit and a quality cooler... That way your PC should last longer than my neglected one.
Electronics suffer from use in the long run. Everytime a transitor switch flips, a little wear and tear happens. IIRC, It's called Electromigration. Higher speeds add more heat which means more damage.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Thx, I'm hoping it will put me ahead of the next tech cycle, so that I can skip it and still be able to run games for a while.
You could also consider waiting a month or two for AMD's next generation of video cards to launch.
If you want to spend a lot to get something special that you can definitely say you got something for the money, look into Eyefinity. You can spread a game window across three monitors, for an enormous resolution. You may or may not be interested, but that's basically the one thing you can get in a $3000 computer (including peripherals) that you won't get in a $2000 computer. Well, other than wasting a lot of money on stupid stuff.
I know a guy who custom ordered a new PC about 6 months ago. He basically just wanted it for bragging rights: it had dual Core i7 Extreme (Gulftown), with triple 580GTX, all with a custom water cooled system with internal neon lighting and triple 30" monitors. It has a hardware module on the front that can control the pumps and fans, and "one button" over clocking (that comes with many motherboards anyway) with a lil LED readout that tells you what GHz his CPU is running at.
He paid $10,000 to have it built for him. So he could tell his guild in WoW that he plays on a $10,000 computer.
What he uses most: the LCD screen on his G19 so he can tell who's talking in Ventrilo. He probably plays worse with the new computer because he spends too much time fiddling with the pump controls or the fan speed indicators or fidgeting with UI elements across 3 screens.
He loves his computer though. He didn't build it for performance, he built it for bragging rights. And for that, he probably wins, not many people are going to have (or be able to have) more expensive computers.
But plenty of people can have computers that perform just as well, or even better, at the games they intend to play on them as this computer.
-----
As far as the title of this thread goes:
Overclocking can damage your hardware, and in a very technical sense of the meaning, it does damage your hardware, but not by a lot.
Overheating will probably not fry your computer like it would in the past. Most every CPU and GPU these days have thermal shutdowns that protect them from short duration extremely high temperatures. It's usually somewhere around 100C that the CPU or GPU will just totally shut down, and a few degrees underneath that they will under clock themselves to try and cool off. So it's pretty hard to just overheat a chip anymore and fry it instantly doing it. You might still be able to do it if you could instantly load a chip to 100% with no heatsink at all and had it insulted, but that's a pretty artificial condition.
Long term, the hotter a chip runs, the shorter it's lifespan will be. Now, chips live a long time anyway, so adding 10C to a chip may reduce it's lifespan from 25 years to 15 years - even running the chip all day long every day at 99C and it will probably live longer than it's useful lifespan before you'd upgrade it.
Overvolting - that's how you get the really good over clocks. Overvolting can immediately fry your CPU/GPU if you jump to a voltage that's too high. It's rare, but it can happen. Just pushing the clocks up to see how fast you can get it - almost never a problem, but when you start to jump the voltage up with it, be careful and do it in very small increments with plenty of testing and never get too greedy with it.
Excuse me for not having the time to get into or unfortunately even read everything...but you appear to be getting a lot of help and discussion and that is good .
My motivations/tips (forgive me if I repeat):
1) Settings. Been a while since I saw an ordinary piece of PC hardware with a performance switch. So - you will see mostly software (including BIOS) settings. I have a program (under WinUlt) that allows me to up voltages and clockspeeds of various components, and informs me of temperature changes. The person who stated those two things as separately important (clock/volt) is very much right. For instance more voltage = more heat and more drain on your PSU (1000 should be more than enough if that is a reliable 1000 number; many manufacturers use silly numbers, bit like they do for amps and monitor brightness). Also check your BIOS (minimum) fan speeds if you start heating things up.
2) FIrst and foremost: think what and why you want to overclock. For me, by the time my (reasonably well-spec'd) PC's get 4-5 years old (if they make that), it's that time I find that some of the newest applications are giving me a slightly tougher time. Now my SSD works wonders, but this is about overclocking and I would only do it on those times you need to. So make some over-clock link on your desktop, where you set it to 0 (for word processing 8-) ), to low/medium (for stuff you might like to speed up a bit, including some browser activities perhaps) or to high (for the max FPS or rendering speed). Advantage being you do not constantly strain your components and hence: more longevity (which you said to like, right?). It may *sound* odd to overclock 'later, rather than sooner' but for me it makes perfect sense. Reqs go up, so should your sys performance.
3) Do things the right way around. Read first (this post you made is smart) and let Tom's Hardware Pages (http://www.tomshardware.com/) and many others (BIOS, hardware tips etc.) guide you through the pitfalls before you burn something to a crisp. I added a ton of speed to my PC just by dumping that Vortex SSD inside, and I am guesstimating it lowers the heat output too (it's not running quite so much - and 0 sound btw).
4) Once you have your notion, write them down and offer the whole darn solution/setup to two or three different forums, I mean hardware advice forums, where you can see the reputation of the person who is talking to you.
Good luck,
Lucas
PS I may not have searched thoroughly enough but - is any part of your computer more important than 1) storage & backup so you don't lose your crapola and 2) monitor? I am looking (after my Samsung 305T+ nearly broke my neck...I should not clean floors ...anyway fixed it, nice reserve monitor now) at a NEC Multisync LCD3090WQXi, and it is after all, where everything you do comes to the ultimate test (unless you just print stuff but you do not strike me as the type ). Evolution has its place though: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4196/nec-pa301w-review-the-baddest-30-inch-display. I never made a better investment in my life than I did with this monitor. It makes you....glow...and not just on the outside! No I do not work for any PC parts company 8-).
* I say, there is no * darkness but ignorance. - * Twelfth-night; or, What You Will
Thanks everyone. What started as an Overclock issue has led to making a lot of changes to my purchased computer. I have now scrapped my original design and went with Quiz's recommendation. Saved me a bunch of money and is still state of the art and should last me a while.
As far as the Overclock issue is concerned, I have decided not to order the system with any Overclock and wait until I see I need it, then adjust to that reality.
I think this is a great thread on overclocking and hopefully will help someone else.
One last question. Quiz's recommendation moved me from NVIDIA base to AMD base graphics cards. Are AMD cards inherrently better than NVIDIA? I always associated NVIDIA with being the best, not AMD.
I've had issues with AMD cards, a few times, when the GPU Controller Software said this version of drivers for a certain vid card, i would find that said driver would lock up my card, and send a 'no signal' to my monitor, where as, nvidia drivers are very good with whatever card they work for., only had one issue with nvidias drivers, and that was on a very old vid card.
Originally posted by blusky103 Overclocking isnt really something you can "turn on", its more of tweaking various settings, which can take hours to find your "sweet spot" and then testing the final OC for at least 12 hours ,
As to this post - I agree, and I disagree.
Finding your Maximum over clock is indeed an iterative process, as you describe. But that's very much different from the actual mechanics of over clocking itself.
Turning on and off Overclocking, is pretty much an on-off situation. You plug in the numbers you want: it's on. You hit "Stock Speed" and it's off. Some BIOS and software packages make it as easy as an On-Off button that allow you to pre-program those levels.
Originally posted by mgilbrtsn One last question. Quiz's recommendation moved me from NVIDIA base to AMD base graphics cards. Are AMD cards inherrently better than NVIDIA? I always associated NVIDIA with being the best, not AMD.
This it very much depends on a few things.
nVidia still has the "fastest single GPU" - the 580GTX. That being said, AMD has a lot going for it as well. nVidia isn't very competitive in the mid-lower tiers of gaming hardware (essentially the 560 and lower) based on price versus performance, nVidia cards generate a lot more heat and use considerably more power to generate similar frame rates and performance as equivalent AMD cards. AMD also has PowerTune in it's 6900 series of cards, which is, in my opinion, one of the best GPU technologies to come out in a very long time. For Price versus Performance, AMD typically holds that crown, and has "generally" for the past couple of generations (with some exceptions and sales and such along the way), although nVidia has held the "Strictly Performance" crown.
Now, nVidia does have better 3D support. CrossFIre and SLI are both still hit or miss, and neither one is really better than the other at the moment, although AMD is a bit more flexible with Crossfire than SLI is since you don't have to have identical cards, just "Same Family" cards. AMD has better multi-monitor support (Eyefinity doesn't require Crossfire, whereas going past 2 monitors on nVidia does for most cards). nVidia has CUDA and hardware PhysX, but those don't really do a lot for gaming.
Drivers: really, those are pretty well on par with each other, and have been for the past couple of years. Sure, one side may be late for a software driver for a specific game, but they are both pretty equally guilty of it, it just depends on the game and whichever side happens to pay more money to the developer to get their logo displayed on the splash screen as to who has their driver out and optimized first.
If you have a significant brand preference for Nvidia, then you could just get two GeForce GTX 580s and be fine. I usually don't recommend them, because 30% more price for 10% more performance isn't great value for the money. But you seem to be less sensitive to price than most.
Do you want to use multiple monitors? The idea is that you can spread a game window across multiple monitors, and have an enormous monitor resolution that way. You want an odd number of monitors for this, so that there isn't a bezel right in the middle. If you have three monitors, then typically the middle one will show what you'd see if you only had one monitor, and the others let you see a lot more off to the sides. In some games, this lets you see more, which gives you a real gameplay advantage. In others, simply being able to have some UI components or menus sitting off to the side can be nice, so that you don't constantly have to pull them up and cover up gameplay.
Part of the reason that I bring this up is that, what can you get in a $5000 gaming computer that you can't get in a $1500 gaming computer? Multiple monitors is about it. Sure, you can max settings on a $5000 computer, but you can do that on a $1500 computer, too. Having three monitors there and spreading the game window across them gives you something special that you can point to and say, that's what I got for the money.
If you would like to go with multiple monitors, then AMD has better driver support for it. AMD's GPU architecture also scales better to extremely high resoultions than Nvidia's. If you're certain that you're only ever going to use one monitor, then you probably would be better off switching to Nvidia, especially since you're not that sensitive to price.
If you have a significant brand preference for Nvidia, then you could just get two GeForce GTX 580s and be fine. I usually don't recommend them, because 30% more price for 10% more performance isn't great value for the money. But you seem to be less sensitive to price than most.
Do you want to use multiple monitors? The idea is that you can spread a game window across multiple monitors, and have an enormous monitor resolution that way. You want an odd number of monitors for this, so that there isn't a bezel right in the middle. If you have three monitors, then typically the middle one will show what you'd see if you only had one monitor, and the others let you see a lot more off to the sides. In some games, this lets you see more, which gives you a real gameplay advantage. In others, simply being able to have some UI components or menus sitting off to the side can be nice, so that you don't constantly have to pull them up and cover up gameplay.
Part of the reason that I bring this up is that, what can you get in a $5000 gaming computer that you can't get in a $1500 gaming computer? Multiple monitors is about it. Sure, you can max settings on a $5000 computer, but you can do that on a $1500 computer, too. Having three monitors there and spreading the game window across them gives you something special that you can point to and say, that's what I got for the money.
If you would like to go with multiple monitors, then AMD has better driver support for it. AMD's GPU architecture also scales better to extremely high resoultions than Nvidia's. If you're certain that you're only ever going to use one monitor, then you probably would be better off switching to Nvidia, especially since you're not that sensitive to price.
No, I'm content with the AMD cards, I was just asking the question for my own edification.
CS_FAN: Maximum Enermax 120MM Case Cooling Fans for selected case (Maximum Silent Operation) [+29] (1,000 RPM Black Color with No LED Enlobal Magnetic Barometric Bearing 17 dBA)
ENGRAVING: NONE
FA_HDD: Vigor iSURF II Hard Disk Drive Cooling System [+21] (1 x System)
UPS1: OPTI-UPS VS575B 575VA/345W Uninterruptible Power Supply [+46]
USB: None
USBFLASH: None
USBHD: None
USBX: NZXT Internal USB 6-PORT Expansion Module [+19]
VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Dual GPU SLI 3GB 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO2: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 Dual GPU SLI 3GB 16X PCIe Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)
VIDEO3: None
WNC: None
Here are my settings, I could do with some advice.
Ya no reason to over clock that thing, the very slight performance boost you may get will not be worth the wear on your hardware. If you do overclock it should be modest.
Comments
This is the most true of all and many overclockers don't know this.
Each time electrons flow through transistors they are able to damage the tiny miniature gates, but it's usually not enough to have a noticable effect, if you overclock your CPU however, the damage is far greater because of the increased heat that is coming from the increased voltage you're applying to overclock, even if you cool your CPU more, the damage is still greater than if you didn't OC your CPU at all and kept the temperature lower.
Overclocking is overrated.
So you have an i7 and cross fire 6990? Try to overclock in 2 or 3 years, because at the moment you will be able to play every game at max settings with 30+++ FPS. Your PC consumes far too much power already, by overlocking it u r just raising ur bills every month.
do not overclock - there is REALLY no need. You could remove one of the GFXcards, which would make more sense than OC.
*shakes head*
Man, I tried to go somewhat excessive on the build I gave you. Let's talk about the "upgrades" that you made.
You know what the difference between a Core i7 2600K and 2700K is? Intel takes a 2600K, overclocks it by 100 MHz for you, and calls it a 2700K. And then charges an extra $50 for it. You can do that yourself by changing the CPU multiplier from 34 to 35 in the BIOS, without changing any other settings. If you know what you're doing, it takes maybe 10 or 20 seconds. If you don't and have to sift through settings, it takes a few minutes.
There is no plausible gaming purpose for which you will need more than 8 GB of memory in the useful life of the machine. Going with 16 GB was already excessive. 32 GB is simply nuts. And expensive. Even the prefetching advantage of tons of memory doesn't accomplish anything, since you're getting a large SSD.
You know what the difference between the Gigabyte -UD4 and -UD7 motherboards are? A bunch of features that you'll never use. Even the -UD4 is already excessive. And a lot of the extra features are stuff like, the -UD4 has two of something, the -UD7 has four of it, hardly anyone will ever use more than one, and you'll personally use none.
The Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590 are both dual GPU video cards, and very hard to cool. The GeForce is much worse about this than the Radeon here. You have to design the whole system around it, and what I picked for you didn't. Two Radeon HD 6970s is already excessive if you're not going to run a 3+ monitor Eyefinity setup.
Even apart from that, four GPUs aren't necessarily better than two, as a lot of work is put into the video card drivers for a two GPU CrossFire system, while much less is put into a 4 GPU system, as hardly anyone ever gets it. From a reliability standpoint, I'd rather have the two 6970s than the two 6990s, even if the price tag were the same.
Don't get that power supply. Even if you do insist on two Radeon HD 6990s in quad CrossFireX, you'd need something stronger. Try the Corsair AX1200 for that. And if you do drop back down to the 6970s, then the Corsair AX850 is a better power supply than the Thermaltake Toughpower 1000 W. A lot better. It's not just the nominal wattage.
Most people think onboard sound is plenty good enough. The only real reason to get a $200 sound card for a gaming system is if you have some fancy speaker setup that onboard sound can't handle. And if you are the sort of audiophile to get that, you should probably be buying the sound equipment separately.
You know what the difference between Windows 7 Home Premium and Professional is? A bunch of features you'll never use. Basically, Microsoft looked at the feature set and said, what are the features that no home user would ever plausibly use? We'll take those out of the Home Premium edition and restrict them to the Professional edition, as a way to make businesses pay an extra $35.
In your case, Home Premium doesn't allow more than 16 GB of memory, but you shouldn't get more than 16 GB of memory, anyway.
I could understand buying Microsoft Office if you'll use that software a lot. But Office Professional? The only things that has that a cheaper version doesn't is Publisher and Access. Access is a database program. I don't even know what Publisher is. If you'll use that software, go ahead and buy it, but unless you're a lot more sophisticated than you're letting on, you'll probably never even run it.
simple.....what ^^this^^ guy says
i'll take another look at my spec. Although, I do use Office professionally and am aware of the various features. I may indeed be a bit more sophisticated than you believe. I dunno
I self identify as a monkey.
OK, changed the cards down, added the power supply you recommended, and went down to 16GB memory. The site recommends Professional for anything 16 and over so I'm sticking to it.
Thanks for all the help. Probably saved me close to 2k
I self identify as a monkey.
Even with a 2K saving I DREAD to think what they are charging you heh !
Glad that you found positive feedback here and hope you enjoy that new rig, it'll scream through anything on the market and I hope it gives you some years of fun !
Thx, I'm hoping it will put me ahead of the next tech cycle, so that I can skip it and still be able to run games for a while.
I self identify as a monkey.
I bought a i750 system a couple of years ago. I didn't overlcock it, honestly there was no need back then, with a solid video card the PC perfomed well in pretty much every game on my resolution.
I never thought of testing how hot it ran, because, well, the thing was on default settings. A few months ago, for the first time on this PC, I ran a few monitoring utilities - and they all reported a temperature of 45+ on idle and 90+ (Celcius) on heavy load. Now, that's just bad.
I did go and get a good new cooler then (yes, keeping the stock fan was sloppy on my part, but isn't it messed up that stock coolers aren't good for even a default setup these days?)... and the PC's been running for 2 years now, but I'd not be surprised if it broke down on me. I've seen many overlocked systems running much cooler than mine. In fact, ironically, most of them do run cool, just because the overclockers tend to pay attention to this sort of thing.
I guess what I'm saying is, pay attention, and know what you're doing - at least know that people who are putting your PC together know what they're doing!
Fit a quality Power Supply Unit and a quality cooler... That way your PC should last longer than my neglected one. 
just throwin this out there. over volting your cpu can be as damaging, if not more, than heat issues.
and yes, you can hit volitile voltages without experiencing hign temps so just do more involved research on the hardware your overclocking
Electronics suffer from use in the long run. Everytime a transitor switch flips, a little wear and tear happens. IIRC, It's called Electromigration. Higher speeds add more heat which means more damage.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
You could also consider waiting a month or two for AMD's next generation of video cards to launch.
If you want to spend a lot to get something special that you can definitely say you got something for the money, look into Eyefinity. You can spread a game window across three monitors, for an enormous resolution. You may or may not be interested, but that's basically the one thing you can get in a $3000 computer (including peripherals) that you won't get in a $2000 computer. Well, other than wasting a lot of money on stupid stuff.
I know a guy who custom ordered a new PC about 6 months ago. He basically just wanted it for bragging rights: it had dual Core i7 Extreme (Gulftown), with triple 580GTX, all with a custom water cooled system with internal neon lighting and triple 30" monitors. It has a hardware module on the front that can control the pumps and fans, and "one button" over clocking (that comes with many motherboards anyway) with a lil LED readout that tells you what GHz his CPU is running at.
He paid $10,000 to have it built for him. So he could tell his guild in WoW that he plays on a $10,000 computer.
What he uses most: the LCD screen on his G19 so he can tell who's talking in Ventrilo. He probably plays worse with the new computer because he spends too much time fiddling with the pump controls or the fan speed indicators or fidgeting with UI elements across 3 screens.
He loves his computer though. He didn't build it for performance, he built it for bragging rights. And for that, he probably wins, not many people are going to have (or be able to have) more expensive computers.
But plenty of people can have computers that perform just as well, or even better, at the games they intend to play on them as this computer.
-----
As far as the title of this thread goes:
Overclocking can damage your hardware, and in a very technical sense of the meaning, it does damage your hardware, but not by a lot.
Overheating will probably not fry your computer like it would in the past. Most every CPU and GPU these days have thermal shutdowns that protect them from short duration extremely high temperatures. It's usually somewhere around 100C that the CPU or GPU will just totally shut down, and a few degrees underneath that they will under clock themselves to try and cool off. So it's pretty hard to just overheat a chip anymore and fry it instantly doing it. You might still be able to do it if you could instantly load a chip to 100% with no heatsink at all and had it insulted, but that's a pretty artificial condition.
Long term, the hotter a chip runs, the shorter it's lifespan will be. Now, chips live a long time anyway, so adding 10C to a chip may reduce it's lifespan from 25 years to 15 years - even running the chip all day long every day at 99C and it will probably live longer than it's useful lifespan before you'd upgrade it.
Overvolting - that's how you get the really good over clocks. Overvolting can immediately fry your CPU/GPU if you jump to a voltage that's too high. It's rare, but it can happen. Just pushing the clocks up to see how fast you can get it - almost never a problem, but when you start to jump the voltage up with it, be careful and do it in very small increments with plenty of testing and never get too greedy with it.
Hey Mgil, folks,
Excuse me for not having the time to get into or unfortunately even read everything...but you appear to be getting a lot of help and discussion and that is good
.
My motivations/tips (forgive me if I repeat):
1) Settings. Been a while since I saw an ordinary piece of PC hardware with a performance switch. So - you will see mostly software (including BIOS) settings. I have a program (under WinUlt) that allows me to up voltages and clockspeeds of various components, and informs me of temperature changes. The person who stated those two things as separately important (clock/volt) is very much right. For instance more voltage = more heat and more drain on your PSU (1000 should be more than enough if that is a reliable 1000 number; many manufacturers use silly numbers, bit like they do for amps and monitor brightness). Also check your BIOS (minimum) fan speeds if you start heating things up.
2) FIrst and foremost: think what and why you want to overclock. For me, by the time my (reasonably well-spec'd) PC's get 4-5 years old (if they make that), it's that time I find that some of the newest applications are giving me a slightly tougher time. Now my SSD works wonders, but this is about overclocking and I would only do it on those times you need to. So make some over-clock link on your desktop, where you set it to 0 (for word processing 8-) ), to low/medium (for stuff you might like to speed up a bit, including some browser activities perhaps) or to high (for the max FPS or rendering speed). Advantage being you do not constantly strain your components and hence: more longevity (which you said to like, right?). It may *sound* odd to overclock 'later, rather than sooner' but for me it makes perfect sense. Reqs go up, so should your sys performance.
3) Do things the right way around. Read first (this post you made is smart) and let Tom's Hardware Pages (http://www.tomshardware.com/) and many others (BIOS, hardware tips etc.) guide you through the pitfalls before you burn something to a crisp. I added a ton of speed to my PC just by dumping that Vortex SSD inside, and I am guesstimating it lowers the heat output too (it's not running quite so much - and 0 sound btw).
4) Once you have your notion, write them down and offer the whole darn solution/setup to two or three different forums, I mean hardware advice forums, where you can see the reputation of the person who is talking to you.
Good luck,
Lucas
PS I may not have searched thoroughly enough but - is any part of your computer more important than 1) storage & backup so you don't lose your crapola and 2) monitor? I am looking (after my Samsung 305T+ nearly broke my neck...I should not clean floors
...anyway fixed it, nice reserve monitor now) at a NEC Multisync LCD3090WQXi, and it is after all, where everything you do comes to the ultimate test (unless you just print stuff but you do not strike me as the type 
). Evolution has its place though: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4196/nec-pa301w-review-the-baddest-30-inch-display. I never made a better investment in my life than I did with this monitor. It makes you....glow...and not just on the outside! No I do not work for any PC parts company 8-).
* I say, there is no
* darkness but ignorance.
-
* Twelfth-night; or, What You Will
Thanks everyone. What started as an Overclock issue has led to making a lot of changes to my purchased computer. I have now scrapped my original design and went with Quiz's recommendation. Saved me a bunch of money and is still state of the art and should last me a while.
As far as the Overclock issue is concerned, I have decided not to order the system with any Overclock and wait until I see I need it, then adjust to that reality.
I think this is a great thread on overclocking and hopefully will help someone else.
One last question. Quiz's recommendation moved me from NVIDIA base to AMD base graphics cards. Are AMD cards inherrently better than NVIDIA? I always associated NVIDIA with being the best, not AMD.
I self identify as a monkey.
I've had issues with AMD cards, a few times, when the GPU Controller Software said this version of drivers for a certain vid card, i would find that said driver would lock up my card, and send a 'no signal' to my monitor, where as, nvidia drivers are very good with whatever card they work for., only had one issue with nvidias drivers, and that was on a very old vid card.
As to this post - I agree, and I disagree.
Finding your Maximum over clock is indeed an iterative process, as you describe. But that's very much different from the actual mechanics of over clocking itself.
Turning on and off Overclocking, is pretty much an on-off situation. You plug in the numbers you want: it's on. You hit "Stock Speed" and it's off. Some BIOS and software packages make it as easy as an On-Off button that allow you to pre-program those levels.
This it very much depends on a few things.
nVidia still has the "fastest single GPU" - the 580GTX. That being said, AMD has a lot going for it as well. nVidia isn't very competitive in the mid-lower tiers of gaming hardware (essentially the 560 and lower) based on price versus performance, nVidia cards generate a lot more heat and use considerably more power to generate similar frame rates and performance as equivalent AMD cards. AMD also has PowerTune in it's 6900 series of cards, which is, in my opinion, one of the best GPU technologies to come out in a very long time. For Price versus Performance, AMD typically holds that crown, and has "generally" for the past couple of generations (with some exceptions and sales and such along the way), although nVidia has held the "Strictly Performance" crown.
Now, nVidia does have better 3D support. CrossFIre and SLI are both still hit or miss, and neither one is really better than the other at the moment, although AMD is a bit more flexible with Crossfire than SLI is since you don't have to have identical cards, just "Same Family" cards. AMD has better multi-monitor support (Eyefinity doesn't require Crossfire, whereas going past 2 monitors on nVidia does for most cards). nVidia has CUDA and hardware PhysX, but those don't really do a lot for gaming.
Drivers: really, those are pretty well on par with each other, and have been for the past couple of years. Sure, one side may be late for a software driver for a specific game, but they are both pretty equally guilty of it, it just depends on the game and whichever side happens to pay more money to the developer to get their logo displayed on the splash screen as to who has their driver out and optimized first.
If you have a significant brand preference for Nvidia, then you could just get two GeForce GTX 580s and be fine. I usually don't recommend them, because 30% more price for 10% more performance isn't great value for the money. But you seem to be less sensitive to price than most.
Do you want to use multiple monitors? The idea is that you can spread a game window across multiple monitors, and have an enormous monitor resolution that way. You want an odd number of monitors for this, so that there isn't a bezel right in the middle. If you have three monitors, then typically the middle one will show what you'd see if you only had one monitor, and the others let you see a lot more off to the sides. In some games, this lets you see more, which gives you a real gameplay advantage. In others, simply being able to have some UI components or menus sitting off to the side can be nice, so that you don't constantly have to pull them up and cover up gameplay.
Part of the reason that I bring this up is that, what can you get in a $5000 gaming computer that you can't get in a $1500 gaming computer? Multiple monitors is about it. Sure, you can max settings on a $5000 computer, but you can do that on a $1500 computer, too. Having three monitors there and spreading the game window across them gives you something special that you can point to and say, that's what I got for the money.
If you would like to go with multiple monitors, then AMD has better driver support for it. AMD's GPU architecture also scales better to extremely high resoultions than Nvidia's. If you're certain that you're only ever going to use one monitor, then you probably would be better off switching to Nvidia, especially since you're not that sensitive to price.
No, I'm content with the AMD cards, I was just asking the question for my own edification.
I self identify as a monkey.
Tell that to the PC enthusiasts.