**Warning: CoolTechZone will not be responsible for any damage that may be caused by the user while overclocking. Overclock at your own risk. **

Aaah…. Back to Intel for trusty old overclocking needs. Intel CPU’s are very underclocked by Intel which means that with good cooling (which we’ll discuss later in this article) and some luck, You can push Intel CPU’s way up their rated speeds. Intel CPU’s have a tendency to be cooler than AMD CPU’s (not bashing AMD). Let’s discuss the parts you will need for overclocking or parts you should have that will give you a successful overclock.

Motherboards: Abit, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI make the best overclocking motherboards in the market. There have been cases where hardcore overclockers have gotten excellent results with Shuttle, Albatron, and other such manufacturers.
RAM: Samsung, Crucial, and Corsair are the best ones out there and I prefer any of these brands. If you successfully want to overclock then get high rating RAM for your computer. For example, if you motherboard only supports PC2700 then I would suggest that you go with PC3000, PC3200 or even PC3500 for noticeable results.
Video Cards/Other PCI Cards: Get any video card you want or any other PCI card you want because there is nothing you can do and there are no video cards that are made specially for people who like to overclock their CPU’s.
Hard Drives/CD-ROM/DVD-Rom/CD-RW/DVD-RW Drives: Just like Video Cards and PCI cards, you can’t really buy the one’s that specially designed for overclockers.
Cooling: THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF OVERCLOCKING. If you want to have a successful overclock and you don’t want your hardware to fry then you need cooling and if you are planning to do some hardcore overclocking then I suggest that you think about water-cooling kit. Usually, overclockers get very good results with air cooling and besides that it all depends on the person you are talking to, some say that 500Mhz increase in speed is good enough but some say that people should insult the art of overclocking by only being impressed with 500Mhz increase.

Now let’s tackle some of the vocabulary words/abbreviations that the hardcore overclockers use:
FSB: Front Side Bus
Vcore: Voltage for your CPU
VDIMM: Voltage for your RAM
PCI/AGP VCore: Voltage for your PCI cards as well as your video card
These are only the basic abbreviations that are being used in the World Of Overclocking, to find more abbreviations or to get a good explanation what each one does, please consult your motherboard manual.

Back to Intel, Intel has been very impressive with their CPU’s so far. They tend to run less hot than AMD and they give overclockers a sense of accomplishment when they get to overclock their CPU’s 1Ghz above the normal rated speed for the CPU. Intel went a little sneaky and locked their jumpers so people can’t overclock their CPU’s. Right now Intel doesn’t really care if people are overclocking since there is only 10% of the computing world knows how to overclock BUT since many, many, many, people are trying overclock every day and the messageboards are filled with tons of overclocking questions, I am afraid that someday Intel will also lock their FSB but I am pretty sure that hardcore geeks will find a way around that. Now if it’s gonna be legal or not, that I don’t know.

As a matter of fact, Intel CPU’s are getting better in overclocking with every new model they release. For Example: In the P4 line, when Intel released their Willamette Core CPU’s everyone thought they rocked in overclocking but Intel proved all those people wrong when they released their Northwood Core CPU’s which were way better than their cousins Willamette. BUT Intel being the best proved that all those people were wrong when they released their new, latest and the greatest Prescott Core. Currently they are rocking the overclocking world but I am sure when Intel release their P5 which is rumored to be released in 2005 code named “Tejas” will be much better in overclocking than any other Intel CPU before unless Intel decides to lock all the overclocking options.

Remember each computer setup is different and each computer setup gets various overclocking results. Overclocking is about luck. Say, you have a computer and your CPU overclocked from 1.8Ghz to 2.8GHz now that does not mean that a friend of yours with a same setup will get this much success and vice versa. Never compare overclocking results with anyone just because each computer is an individual just like you. You might end up ruining your motherboard and CPU at the end, if you overclock too much and that is the most common mistakes I see when people tell me why their CPU or motherboard got fried. Another thing to remember is NEVER to be greedy. Just be happy with your results. Greed is one of many things that will cause your CPU to burn out which in result cause you to shell out another $400.00 ouch!

As you have read in our previous article “Overclocking Explained!” the dangers related to overclocking but also the rewards and you are not scared and ready to get in on the action then read our next article “Overclocking Intel CPU: Part 2”