Hardware Tips: Will Overclocking Give an Old CPU New Pep?
A friend of mine recently suggested I could squeeze more speed out of my aging Pentium III system by “overclocking” the CPU. He says it’s easy to push my CPU speed past its factory settings. But I wonder why Intel wouldn’t run a chip at its fastest setting. Is overclocking really as safe and simple as my friend says? Glen Raven, Jackson, Mississippi Sometimes it’s simple, sometimes it’s safe. But sometimes it’s neither. Overclocking means running a CPU faster than the clock speed it’s certified for. With many PCs, you just need to change one or two settings in their CMOS setup program. Increasing the frontside bus speed and/or CPU multiplier will make your processor run faster. So why isn’t your CPU already running at its fastest speed? Processors are made in sheets called wafers; only a few CPUs on each wafer are tested to determine the top speed rating for the whole batch. Proponents of overclocking say many of the untested CPUs are capable of running at higher speeds. Overclockers’
