Overclocking, techniques for increasing your computer's performance

Overclocking means literally what it says and is used to make a computer component work at a faster speed than its original specification. It is normally applied to the processor, although it is also useful for speeding up the memory, video cards and PCI devices, this last group including access to discs, since both its IDE and SCSI controllers are connected to this bus.

The computer industry is governed by “Moore’s Law”, which says that the power of processors doubles every 18 months. These days, fast technological evolution and companies’ sales strategies lead us to believe that our computer becomes “obsolete” the moment we buy it. By “obsolete” we don’t mean that the microprocessor “grows old.” A processor will work for the whole of its lifetime at the same speed – it doesn’t slow down as it gets older. What happens is that new applications demand ever more power from the processor, which makes us question whether we need more power than we already have. The more power we need, the more overclocking can do for us, as it can make our computer perform better at minimal cost. This way, we can put off buying a new machine and eventually buy a better one than the one we had thought of, and for a better price.

Where does the process begin? 

  1 What is overclocking?
  2 Where does the process begin? 
  3 Before starting
  4 Jumpers and BIOS
  5 Changing the voltage
  6 Problems
  7 Cooling techniques
  8 More about cooling
  9 Cooling for software
10 Examples of overclocking
11 Pushing other components
12 Graphics cards
13 Utilities
14 Overclocking forum
15 Links refrigeradores

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