Is overclocking worthwhile these days?

[V.V.S. Kambli]

Overclocking a processor now has become so simple that even a common man who is unaware about the technical world can do it. During the initial time overclocking a processors by 100 MHz was such a big achievement for those people and the performance which they use to get were satisfying according to them. But my question do we really need to overclock processors when the processors like quad core/hexacore are existing which gives you the top level performance.

[Aileya]

Overclocking a CPU is always been a worthy task. No doubt if a processor is overclocked it is definitely going to increase the performance, no matter with what margin the performance differs but the result is ultimately positive. Overclocking has never caused a negative impact on the computer until and unless done with a properly.

[Naruto Uzumaki]

No doubt OCing has always been a real world benefit and it will always remain so. On the other side it also has many troubles and issue as mentioned above if not done properly. And also now a days many people do overclock their processor just because they like doing so. OCing has become a hobby for them without even realizing the cost and benefit of it. There are people I have seen who do OCing just because they know how to do it rather than doing it when they really need it.

[Makarios]

During the earlier time people use to do lots of work or tasks on the computer which had limited CPU power available. In fact scanning for virus and also de-fragmentation processes use to take lot of time in those days as compared to the present time. But as the time passed the average non over clocked system’s CPU power has increased a lot to the point that smaller tasks became slow. There is also a noticeable difference by overclocking, application of games and video encoding see the best benefit and also photo shop is one of the benefited applications.

[AshritaS]

According to me I have not seen a big difference made in the computer after overclocking. Buy anyways in my case CorelDraw or photoshop opens and renders at faster speed.
Keeping aside those CPU that does shows some improvement in their games and apps after a decent overclocking, the impact is not so happening as it used to be during the initial time, especially with the newer chips. However I am very much satisfied with the small amount of increase in cooling than the normal cooling which I use to get before overclocking.

[Bethany Johson]

I was very much interested in overclocking. And I was expecting delivery of my computer parts today. I was on a short of budget so ordered:- Core i5-2500K/Gigabyte board/Radeon HD 6870/8 GB DDR3-1600 RAM. I was really planning to try out overclocking on my pc as I know how well intel core i5-2500k can handle it. But now after reading the posts I am not sure whether it is worth doing so.

[Beatrix]

Even I have I5-2500K processor and I overclocked it once to 4.0 ghz that had a temp increase of few degrees. The difference in decoding and encoding was a few minutes on a 30gb blu-ray disk. Photoshop was loading in with a faster speed and also it loaded large images quickly with no time. When it comes to copy large files from my computer to the server the system slows down. Overall I just need to say that for me, overclocking was just for sake. It actually didn’t impress me.

[kishna15]

well, overclocking is not advisable especially if your computer can't handle the pressure it brings to your computer temperature. In the case of overclocking a quadcore or dual core, I think its ironic to do that. those models are already fast in speed.

[xeneratioN^]

Yes, overclocking is always worthwhile. I have an E7500 @ 3.68GHz with CM Vortex Plus, well you have to worry a bit about the temperatures and an aftermarket cooler too, anyway overclocking a cpu is worthwhile.

[OCNub]

well the sad thing is that software/game developers need more and more processing power day by day... nothing satisfies their hunger ... a CPU considered "fast" today will get outdate soon with new replacement and new software/game that is even more CPU intensive. Mine is a Q6600 and 2-3 yrs back it was good choice as a Quad core but as of today i see the performance penalty in game even when i m using hd6950. To play metro2033 w/o lag at high settings i need to OC my CPU till 3.2 - 3.4 Ghz! So overclocking is still in action for me... i think its neva gonna die considering that it has a sort adventure attached to it