Overclocking: Then and Now

Filed in archive Game Hardware on January 10, 2007

Remember the days when the mere mention of "overclocking" your system resulted in threats of voiding your warranty from vendors? Well those days are gone, my friend. 2Geeks has an article up regarding how system overclocking is perceived today, and not only is it tolerated but even encouraged. They even tested out off the shelf products to see how much the industry has shifted with regards to overclocking.

In the early days of gaming, processors were only over-clocked via a hardware hack, incorrect jumper settings, or replacement of a motherboard's timing crystal. Now we're able to tweak all sorts of speeds using the PC's BIOS. Not only can we now over-clock on the fly, we can also over-clock without fear of damaging hardware. All new CPUs tout built-in thermal protection that will either throttle-down processing cycles or adjust clock frequencies on the fly. Also, many CPUs that are over-clocked too far will become unstable and force a system reboot before any hardware damage can occur.