Overclocking

harakim

harakim

Big Geek
What would be the best way to overclock for cheap? If I used electrical tape and industrial grade plastic i could cover the entire motherboard, cable connections, hard drives, etc. and run it in a bathtub. Also, I have -10 degree 2% humidity right outside my room to work with. What would be the ultimate setup?
 
Well, submersion is not the answer unless you want to spend some big bucks. The plastic would melt, and the water would heat up over time. That would be a very uneconomical setup. The ultimate would be phase change but you're looking at upwards of $1000 for that. I would recommend water cooling with a peltier. Even with that setup you're still looking at $500.
 
I once saw someone boil water in a plastic bag by putting the bag in the flames of a campfire, so my theory is that using industrial-grade, high-guage plastic you could put it right near the cpu with a thin medium and it would transfer to the water just like in the plastic bag example.
 
I've heard of sumbersion, but not in water like you're talking about, rather an oil of sorts, but I can't remember exactly what was used. I don't think you'd be able to get the heat to transfer out quickly enough, but I could be wrong. I'd check and ask around at places like [H]ardForums, XS Forums, or OC Forums.

The main issue with your theory is where does the heat go? Well, yeah, it goes into the water, but the heat in the water needs to be disappated somehow, and I'm not sure the average bathtub is going to cut it. Second thing would be the sealing. Unless you're using 100% H2O, if the seal breaks, you're screwed. Water doesn't conduct electricity, but the impurities in the water do.

As far as overclocking for cheap, I'd look into a copper cooler from Thermalright or ThermalTake. For the Athlon 64's, Thermalright's XP-90 or XP-90C (C for Copper instead of aluminum) runs around $30-40 online....and it's a helluva lot safer. Personally, I'd suggest investing in a decent air cooling solution instead of trying the idea you're looking at.
If you still want to test your theory, go ahead, but I'd suggest using a cheap-o PC that isn't a loss if your experiment goes south.
 
What things do I need to worry about when overclocking?
If my temperatures stay the same, then I'm good right?
Or does the voltage matter and how do I know if it's too much?

I o/ced my pentium 4 from 1,8ghz to 2,7ghz without changing the voltage and its pretty stable (I run a game server and it doesn't crash, but it's choppy sometimes.)
Since my temperatures went up only 1 degree on the cpu and 4 degrees in the case am I still good?
 
thats pretty good if you havent even increased the voltage, thats 900mhz increase, my amd 64 had to have voltage bump at just over 400mhz overclock.
 
Yeh but the earlier Pentium 4 Northwoods are fantastic overclockers, my brother has a 1.7Ghz P4 and i've overclocked it stable to 2.5GHz with no voltage increase and not much heat increase.

With regards to what BigB was talking about i read an article and watched a video on the net about some one who overclocked an FX55 or a P4 Extreme Edition to a stable 6Ghz submerged but he worked at a gas distrubuter and submerged the board in pure liquid nitrogen or H2O (think was H2o as nitrogren blows up i think lol)..

was impressive, but why bother is it really worth it?

As mentioned by willhub, u would want to go for a Phase Changing kit such as a Mach I, Mach II or Vantec Phase Change Kit. You can set temperatures of below -100 Celcius. but your meant to keep it between -20 & 15Celcius as these are the optimum performance temperatures for CPU's.

If you ever buy a phase change kit, get a universal fitting, this will allow for use with future cpu's.. in the UK you'd be looking at about £500 for a phase change cooler, and they requir between 20-250Watts of power (by them selves ) - they come with their own PSU..
 
So all that matters is the temperature? Let's say theoretically, I could keep it perfectly cool while running 3 volts through it. That would be a safe overclock?
 
Depends on the CPU. While cooling does help, going over a certain voltage is a good way to kill a CPU, regardless of cooling, so with any modern CPU, from the Pentium 4 on, 3V would be ultimately lethal.

Around 1.7V is not recommened for long-term use with P4's---at least the Socket 478 variety. I'm not sure if this applies to the LGA775 chips or not.
Athlon XPs: 1.9-2.1V is not recommeded without good watercooling or phase-change/LN2, and I think that much above that is getting into dangerous waters.
A64's: 1.8V the absolute max is what I'm hearing right now, but that could change. 1.6V is about all the higher you really want to go without really good aircooling or switching to some better form of cooling.
 
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