Do you overclock your laptop's cpu and if so which tools do you use?

I like to tweak my computer hardware and I engage in overclocking my cpu to boost performance. I use a software from my laptop's manufacturer (MSI) to perform my overclocking. Do you guys overclock or are you afraid it may damage your laptop?

 

I don't overclock out of fear to screw up my laptop (pardon my french!), it's just I don't think I'm experienced enough with computers in general. Not at all, I'm not even sure how to do it, so for now I'll just pass.

 

I used to overclock the older desktops and make provisions to keep them cooler if I did, but I don't normally do that anymore since it can reduce the longevity of the CPU and the systems run much hotter than before. You usually need more than a good box fan to keep it cool enough when doing that now, and end up needing a really chilly air conditioner to keep the temperature as cold as possible in a room or you end up using liquid nitrogen or something similar to cool the chip and the board to make sure it doesn't get too hot if you're doing experimental overclocking to extremes. Even nominal overclocking can wear down the thermal grease and cooling measures of the system if other ways to cool it are not officially needed if it's just clocked above normal but not too much.

On laptops I would never overclock it. Usually because you're dealing with an integrated GPU that already has overheating issues over time. One of the first things to overheat and go out on a laptop is usually the graphics chip (GPU) because when you're doing a lot of gaming or graphics work, it can run extremely hot in a small amount of time and push the temperature over the edge for the board. Overclocking in the past wasn't as risky as it can be today, because the temperature increase was very small, and the graphics cards were not having nearly the load or heat generation as they do today.

You might still want to overclock a desktop on occasion if you can do it safely and keep it cool enough...or are ok with replacing the board or CPU if it overheats sooner than later while getting more speed and performance out of it for an expected amount of time. If not, you might just want to go with what you have.

If you do decide that you want to overclock a laptop or desktop in software, one tool that you can use to do this is SETFSB. Be very careful with it, though. You do so at your own risk, and the results vary from system to system and specs.

 

I don't do that anymore. I used to use a combination of SpeedFan and another software, but I realized that it just wasn't worth it. Its always better to try to elongate the life of your cpu instead of reducing it via overclocking. Things can and do go wrong even with good cooling when you overclock a cpu.

 

I did before with my desktop. I use the BIOS for overclocking. I tried before with my laptop, but I need to install a modified BIOS to overclock it. Doing so will void the warranty so I didn't.

Just a heads up to anyone, do not try to overclock your CPU with a software. It should be done only through the BIOS. It's not recommended to overclock your laptop CPU in the first place. Raising the CPU voltage even by the smallest amounts results to exponential increase in load temperatures. Although most laptops have decent cooling to keep it running for extended periods of time, it's only designed for stock clocks and not overclocked clocks.

 

My computer is still under warranty so I can do that yet, but even after it finishes I don't think that I will be doing it. These new CPUs have turbo function so I don't want to mess it up.

 

Yeah, I agree. I guess don't fix what ain't broke, eh?

I use my laptop mainly for gaming before, and there's not much benefit in gaming if I overclock my CPU. Haven't tried to actually do it, but I've seen some benchmarks show that OCing the CPUs really did not have that much benefit (unless the game is CPU dependent, but most games are more dependent on the GPU). Unless you have or are going for extreme setups like liquid cooling, it's best to OC the GPU instead.

 

I have personally never tried that 'overlocking' thing because it looks like something odd and dangerous for me, processors come with a default velocity, do not really think that alterating it would be the best option ever, if I ever wanna have a faster PC I could just get a new build or upgrade my specs,otherwise I would not overlock my PC in any instance.

 

I have seen some articles that would show you how to bypass the turbo function and keep the CPU always on it's max speed. I doubt that it can be good for your laptop. It's true the GPU is very important and many people over look it.

 

Some models are designed to allow a bit of overclocking, most are not. In either case, the power consumption and increase in temperature will just shorten the life of your components. You probably aren't going to get enough of a performance boost to make it worth it.

 

I don't have a laptop, but I do have a PC. To answer your question, no, I don't overclock it. You see, a PC for me is like a very loyal worker. As long as you treat it right, it will do its functions without problems for as long as it can. If you overclock it, or modify it to improve the performance, there is always a chance your specs can't handle the overclocking for too long, and it will fail you. Best not to risk it, am I right?

 

Bah. Sometimes when you buy chips you are getting factory overclocked versions sold at the higher rating, sometimes you are getting something that was under-clocked or disabled like the 3 core rana AMD cpu's that could have the 4th core enabled. Overclocking isn't inherently bad if you know what you are doing, it just doesn't always yield the results you want.

 

I'm not experienced enough to do this, but from what I'm gathering, it's not really something that you need to do, but can if you want. I would worry that it would mess something up or destroy the lifespan of the computer all together. I stick to the "don't fix what isn't broke" policy.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that there are a lot of laptops on the market right now utilizing an APU instead of a separate CPU & GPU setup. Most of the time upgrading these would be problematic because the APU is often soldered to the board. This would make overclocking handy if it is supported. Unfortunately you won't be able to on many APU setups.

 

As someone who had been overclocking every desktop PC I have ever built since late 1990s, I will never overclock my laptop. The amount of gain is not worth the extra heat and lowered useful life for the laptop.

Desktop PCs have better (stock) cooking system, and you can even upgrade the stock cooling to something fantastic like liquid cooling. For a laptop, you are stuck with the minimal cooling it has. Any amount of overclocking will produce more heat than it can barely handle.

Besides, a lot of laptops' motherboard BIOS settings are not really overclock friendly if you can overclock them at all.

Anyway, I'd never recommend to overclock a laptop. You will be fine on a desktop though.

 

I wouldn't usually recommend it either, but if you have the know how it can be done safely. Whether it can be done will largely depend on the manufacturer support. I over clocked and old Compaq NC6000 with a pin mod, and it has been stable and doesn't heat up enough to be of concern, but I got lucky.

 

Was the performance gain worth it? The point is, you might at most see a little score gain in benchmarks. When it comes to real world performance, you won't even feel it at all unless it is a huge increase in clock speed from the overclocking. In that case, it will produce a lot more heat than the stock speed, and perhaps it will even draw more power to drain your battery quicker too. Even if it is stable on the stock cooling, the extra heat will definitely shorten the life of the laptop components. We buy laptops for its convenience of portability. If we need power, we go for desktops which can be obtained at much lower price for a lot more power, and they can be easily overclocked to have huge gains.