Should you overclock your CPU?

For decades, overclocking has been the telltale mark of a PC enthusiast. Even with immeasurable performance leaps in computing hardware, the idea of squeezing every drop of performance out of even the best CPUs remains. But should you still need to overclock your CPU?

The leaps in computing power have also brought more tools for overclocking in a safe way, and modern processors even overclock themselves to a degree. In this guide, we’re going to cover what overclocking is, the risks and rewards associated with it, and if the performance gains are worth the effort.

What is overclocking?

Overclocking refers to pushing the clock speed of your processor past its rated limit. Clock speed is the number of cycles your CPU can complete in a second, and it’s measured in hertz. So, a 4GHz processor can complete 4 billion clock cycles per second.

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Although clock speed doesn’t directly show how many instructions your CPU is executing, it gives you an idea of the relative number of instructions. All things being equal, a 4GHz processor can complete more instructions than a 3.5GHz one, for example. Due to things like processor architecture, age, and manufacturer, though, that’s not always the case, but it’s a good general rule of thumb and it makes the purpose of overclocking simple. You can overclock to achieve higher clock speeds, which in turn, allows your processor to complete more instructions each second.

Overclocking typically involves the primary processor, though you can also overclock a graphics card/GPU for a boost in graphics processing. There is no one rule in how fast you can speed up a processor, and every overclocking project produces different results. That makes your decision to overclock rather difficult.

Is overclocking worth it? Yes — and no.