Also known as speed margining, overclocking is the process by which you increase system performance via the increasing of one of two things:

1) CPU Clock Rate
2) Bus Speed

Why should I Overclock?

If you want an easy inexpensive way to increase overall system performance (though not always the safest way) Overclocking is right for you. First, I would like to state that I am not responsible for any damages caused to your system caused by information obtained from this page or any page. You must first realize that there is a certain risk involved with overclocking, you risk shortening the lifespan of your computer as a whole as well as system stability. Overclocking should be done at your own risk and expense, again I am in no way responsible for possible system damage caused by overclocking. Now that we got that out of the way lets find out how to overclock...

Overclocking - The Tools of the Trade

So you want to overclock, but what do you need? First you need adequate cooling, be sure to have a fairly large heatsink and fan combo. A little Thermal Compound between the heatsink and processor wouldn't hurt either. Second, you need to find out the jumper settings for your specific mainboard. These can be found out from the mainboard manual or from the manufacturer's web page. Third, if you wish to overclock the bus speed (i.e. taking it up to 66MHz or above) make sure your mainboard supports the specific bus speed and make sure you have RAM that will handle the increased load. I recommend 60ns EDO for any bus speed above 60MHz, and SDRAM for any bus speed above 75MHz. Some tweaking of the BIOS memory timings may be necessary to ensure stable system performance. Now that we've taken care of that, lets move on to how you overclock...

Overclocking - The Basics

As stated above you have two options once you've decided to overclock your system (actually now there are three options but I'll get to the third one a little later). You can increase the CPU's rated clock speed or you can simply increase the memory bus speed. First let's talk about increasing the CPU's rated clock speed. This can be accomplished by increasing the CPU clock multiplier with or without increasing the memory bus speed. For example, lets take a Pentium Classic running at 150MHz. The bus speed of this chip is a mere 60MHz with a 2.5x clock multiplier, this gives you a multitude of possibilities to overclock to. Lets discuss the options you would have in this situation. You could simply increase the clock multiplier from 2.5x to 3.0x resulting in a 180MHz processor and a nice little performance gain. You also have the option of increasing the clock multiplier and bus speed taking it from a 60MHz bus times a 2.5x clock multiplier to a 66MHz bus speed times a 3.0x clock multiplier therefore giving you a whopping 200MHz chip. The latter scenario I should add is REALLY pushing the limits of the chip and should be approached with caution. Earlier I discussed the option of simply increasing the memory bus speed. In this case, doing so would yield an extremely fast processor. Increasing the bus speed from 60MHz to 66MHz would take the chip up to a whopping 166MHz and resulting in an overall system performance increase of around 15% - 25%. The stability of the system in this case would be much more reliable than overclocking the CPU to 180 or 200MHz since you are only increasing the actual CPU clock rate by 16MHz versus 30 or 50MHz.

Basic Overclocking Table

Below is a list of the first and second options when performing a basic overclocking of your CPU (NOTE: the AMD K5 PR/166+ runs using a 1.75x internal clock multiplier and the AMD K6 PR2/233 uses an internal 3.5x clock multiplier):

With the release of the Cyrix 6x86 PR-200+ the 75MHz bus speed began appearing in motherboards first that officially supported it, and then in motherboards equipped with Intel chipsets which officially DON'T support bus speeds greater than 66MHz. As you may have figured out, this broadens the horizon for overclockers. Lets take that same Pentium Classic running at 150MHz (60 x 2.5) and put it on a board that supports the 75MHz bus speed. We now have the option of keeping the CPU speed at 150MHz but taking the bus speed up to 75MHz and the clock multiplier down to 2.0x. A 150MHz Pentium Classic running at (75 x 2.0) should yield greater overall system performance than a Pentium Classic running at 166MHz. And when doing this, you have less of a risk of damaging your CPU. With the advent of the 75MHz bus speed, the 83.3MHz bus speed was close behind. Take that same 150MHz Pentium Classic CPU and overclock it to 166MHz. This time instead of using a 66MHz bus speed and a 2.5x clock multiplier use a 83.3MHz bus speed and a 2.0x clock multiplier. While both settings would give you a Pentium 150 overclocked to 166MHz the one using the 83.3MHz bus speed would give you overall system performance equal to if not greater than a Pentium Classic 200!!!

Advanced Overclocking Table

Below is a list of the first and second options when performing an advanced overclocking of your CPU (NOTE: the AMD K5 PR/166+ runs using a 1.75x internal clock multiplier and the AMD K6 PR2/233 uses an internal 3.5x clock multiplier):

Overclocking - If You can't Stand the Heat, Get Out of the Kitchen...

As you might be able to tell, overclocking a CPU can yield a significant increase in heat production in addition to a speed increase. Therefore you need to make sure that you have adequate cooling for your case and overclocked CPU. If you are doing some severe overclocking or if you are overclocking a Cyrix/IBM 6x86 or AMD K5 (both of which run EXTREMELY hot in their unoverclocked state) a peltier cooler is almost a must. For those of you who don't know, a peltier cooler is a sort of mini refrigeration unit for your CPU, they have been known to decrease the heat levels of your processor tremendously. Their success rate truly justifies their cost which is normally in the range of $40 - $50. A tower case with a 2nd fan also is a great environment to be running an overclocked CPU in. Bottom line, make sure both your case and CPU have adequate cooling before attempting to overclock anything.

Conclusion

If you want a cheap and easy way to increase performance and aren't too concerned with the risks involved, overclocking is the right choice for you. Have fun with your newly overclocked CPU...