Increasing Computer Performance

I haven't really had any blog worthy tech stuff recently so I thought I'd relay some information about Overclocking in computing for those who might be interested to know more.

Basically with overclocking you are increasing the number of instructions the CPU can process in a given clock cycle by changing some basic BIOS settings.  Typically at the expense of stability (tho this can be nominal) and power consumption you can see major speed improvements over your stock CPU settings.  Conversely, many laptops use underclocking which saves power and wear on the CPU by decreasing the number of clock cycles.

Overclocking has two components the clock cycles on the CPU (called the multiplier typically) and clock rate on the FSB (Front-Side Bus).  The CPU multiplier is the instruction speed internally to the CPU while the FSB is how quickly information is sent to the other components.  Quick note: The FSB is the communication pipline from the CPU to the Northbridge which is what communicates to many of the other Motherboard components like the RAM and installed cards.  Contrastingly, the Southbridge communicates with the "slower" devices like drives and other I/O devices.  For newer chips the FSB is now being called the QPI (Quick Path Interconnect) but its the same concept.

By switching the multiplier settings and clock rate you can increase the performance of your machine if done correctly.  You'd also change the timing on your RAM as well to get an increase in performance since any slow point in the chain is going to cause bottlenecks.  You'll notice many GPUs will have similar settings like the motherboard to overclock.

One thing you'll also need to factor in is cooling and your power supply's ability to handle the increased draw for overclocking.  This is why many overclocked machines use water or other non-air cooling solutions in addition to high wattage power supplies.

There is no real formula on which settings to use to overclock your machine... its a process of trail and error but there are sites that might help you in this area.

One last thing to talk about is unlocking vs overclocking.  Overclocking is increasing hardware performance by increasing power consumption while unlocking is enabling existing hardware functionality that was intentionally disabled by the manufacturer.  When unlocking is applicable is scenarios where a piece of hardware is the same across product models but high-end features are disabled.  An unlocked card would a cheaper end of that line that has been flashed (firmware updated) to allow all the features that are normally reserved for the higher-end card.   The drawback to this method of performance tuning is that some cards are not tested to work at their max settings if they're a lower end card so it might not work OR the manufacturer has modified the hardware in such a way that the features don't work on the lower end card like severing the pathways on the board.