Need my hand held with OCing

RitaRita
edited March 2010 in Hardware
Hello guys, very first post.. my name is Rita.I'm happy that i found this site, can hardly contribute at this moment but hopefully i'll learn :)

So, i recently got this nice PC and i must admit that i'm not really into technical stuff and overclocking so it would be lovely if someone can give me some tips and answer some questions of paranoid nature for me.

Okay, so my system:
Mobo: Intel DX58SO
CPU: Intel core i7-920
RAM: Kingston Hyper-x series KHX1600C9D3K3/6GX (in short 6gb of ddr3 ram)
GPU: Nvidia GTX 295

Now, got a mix of questions regarding the CPU and my RAM.. First of all let me say that i got a case with pretty good air flow, the silverstone raven RV01.. now my first question is: Is it safe to OC my CPU(to like 3GHz) with its stock cooling?Same question would be for my RAM.

Also, i'm using intels Desktop control center at the moment - uploaded some pictures so you can get the idea:
Processor - http://i102.photobucket.com/albums [...] s/Proc.png
RAM - http://i102.photobucket.com/albums [...] us/Ram.png

So, processor looks okay and all.. but i don't know what to increase etc
As for the memory.. even i can see that something is clearly wrong here, according to kingstons site.. my ram runs @ 1600 and the timings are 9 9 9 27 and memory voltage @ 1.65v
but as you can see it currently runs @ 1066 and timings are set to 8 8 8 19 and 1.54v .. a little confused here :( now either the guy that set my PC up did something wrong or i'm mistaken and the settings are fine.

**Don't have much faith in the guy that configured my PC, some time ago i realized that my intel SSD was not in AHCI mode and i had to set it myself(it got like +20% in performance after doing so).

My very last question is a more general one:
By overclocking something, does it make it 'wear' faster and decrease its longevity overall? I'm asking this because i'm not rich, i worked really hard in order to buy this PC and it would suck if by OCing i damaged it in any way.

That will be all, rather messy/long post - hope i can get someone to give me a hand with these things.Thanks.

Comments

  • Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
    edited March 2010
    I'm not the most skilled over clocker, especially not on Intel's platform, but I do know a few things.

    I'd almost universally say that its advisable to swap out Intel's stock cooling when over clocking, or really, just period. Are you certain you have the stock cooler in place, did he build with something else?

    Overclocking will add heat especially as you have to increase chip voltages to gain stability, and heat will add some component wear and tear. How much? These day's most enthusiast motherboards do a nice job for overclockers, shutting down when it reaches a unreasonable heat threshold, but even then, your adding stress to the components anytime you do it.

    Question is this. Why? Why do you desire to overclock? Is there any real value to be gained in having a system thats moderately faster (and yours is a rocket ship already). I think most of us do it to tinker honestly. We just want to feel like we have a greater understanding of the system and what its capable of, but does it really make us any more productive, or enable us to run applications that much better? It just depends on what you do, ton's of video to encode, well, you should be GPU encoding it using the graphics card anyway, wanna rip CD's 5 seconds faster, well, okay, maybe you can, but I think the real goal of most overclockers these days is to tinker, just because we can.

    I'm curious if thats the case here? If so, I'll bet there are a few guy's on the board that are intimately familiar with overclocking the i7.
  • RitaRita
    edited March 2010
    Thank you for your reply :)

    Well, let's just say that i want to slowly get into the overclocking 'business' learn a couple of things on the way that will help me understand PCs better along the way as well.All this - provided of course that i'm working on really *safe* levels(other people usually will provide such infos).At this very moment however i'm also plagued about my RAM, since the timings/MHz look 'off' if you compare them with the stats that kingston gives.

    As for a more practical approach, i'm also into MMORPGs(not playing one at the moment, tho)and during large scale battles and generally during situations were ALOT of things are going on then always the CPU becomes the bottleneck and not the GPU - that i know from the very little personal experience and some research i've done :) so overclocking it just a lil bit will do something for the choppy gameplay.

    p.s. forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes, english is not my native language :p
  • Cliff_ForsterCliff_Forster Icrontian
    edited March 2010
    Well, your English is a heck of allot better than my writing in your native language, you write very well.

    Check this out, its a nice little tool a couple of the Icrontic guys put together to assist in your over clocking adventure.

    Here is some discussion about overclocking your chip on stock.

    Read some aftermarket heatsink reviews if your really interested in getting the most out of your overclocking experience. A decent aftermarket heatsink is the best way to ensure a good overclocking experience while protecting your investment.
  • jedihobbitjedihobbit Central Virginia, USA New
    edited March 2010
    What ever became of this attempt at overclocking?? :confused:
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