How to overclock your cpu and gpu, for beginners

The word overclock may be a very intimidating to some but it really isnt that scary if you get the hang of it. What is overclocking exactly? Overclocking is the process of forcing a computer or component to operate faster than the manufactured clock frequency. Operating voltages may also be changed (increased), which can increase the speed at which operation remains stable. Most overclocking techniques increase power consumption, generating more heat, which must be dispersed if the chip is to remain operational. The purpose of overclocking is to increase the operating speed of given hardware. The trade-offs are an increase in power consumption and fan noise, the system can become unstable if the equipment is overclocked too much, and the risk of damage due to excessive overvoltage or heat generation. In extreme cases, costly and complex cooling (e.g., water-cooling) is required. -Wikipedia

So you now must be thinking: Wow overclocking is really dangerous, why would i want to do such a thing? The answer. More performance. And to be honest, gpus and cpus have come a LONG way in terms of overclocking capacity, and safety precautions that prevents hardware damage. Amd for example encourages overclocking with their "black fx" series of cpus. While for gpus, overclocking is as simple as using a slider bar:
Now for the tutorial, I am NOT 100% sure if harpoon gaming approves of overclocking or not. So until an admin otherwise approves the further continuation of this tut, this is where it ends. :/

Feel free to add me on steam or post directly into this thread if you want to know more about overclocking or want one-on-one help overclocking your specific hardware. (Also not 100% sure if offering services, even free services, is allowed also so I might save that until I have approval)


UPDATE: Heres the tutorial.

Note: I am only going to talk about gpu overclocking as not EVERY cpu can be overclocked, also not every motherboard supports overclocking as cpu overclocking takes place in the BIOS. Please contact me personally if you want to know if you system's cpu can even overclock, and how to do it.


How to overclock you gpu!

Heres going to be some of the things you are going to need so achieve a stable overclock on your gpu:
1. A gpu
2. Overclocking software (such as MSI afterburner, link to that program at the bottom of this post)
3. A way to stress test your gpu (like MSI Kombustor, or valley benchmark. I prefer valley)
4. Properly cooled hardware (proper positive airflow throughout your case)

Lets start with the basics. There are two main components to gpus that are overclock-able. The "core clock" and the "memory clock". These are two different propertys of you gpu what will overclock differently.
As you can see here:

my core speed is 1050mhz and my memory speed is 3855mhz. Memory speed is always doubled in afterburner so in reality i am really running my vram at 7710mhz, or .7 gb faster than the standard speed of 7gb.

How to overclock your core clock: Locate your "core voltage, power limit, and temp limit" sliders and max them out and hit the check mark at the bottom to apply your settings. What we have done here is told our power supply to deliver more power to the card (increasing its stability), and we have increased its temp limits so it does not begin to throttle itself when under load and while heating up.

Now, locate your core clock slider and while running valley benchmark in windowed mode so you can change speeds and watch for instability without having to switch between windows, begin increasing your clock speed in increments of 10 mhz untill the following happens:
-your starting to see discolored pixels on screen (or in the program)
-for fps is dropping dramatically, usually indicating a upcoming program crash
-your program crashes, or your gpu drivers crash (your screen will flash usually black or grey and in the bottom of your screen you will usually see "bla bla bla, you screen drivers have stopped responding but have recovered")
-your system locks up requiring a restart
-BSOD

All of these things will NOT damage your gpu as long as you increase your speed slowly and ease off when you start to see your system become unstable. If your system crashes, your gpu will automatically revert to stock speeds to allow you to reboot.

Now that you know the limit of you card, you need to find how stable that is. You may be able to get a +300 mhz core overclock without crashing in valley benchmark, but in reality, your card may only be able to handle a 250mhz core overclock when games like battlefield really push it to the limit. So, play a game like battlefield. Or if you dont have battlefield get a game called world of tanks. This game not only eats up your graphics cards power with its default high res textures, but it will also automatically crash your drivers at the first sigh if instability. (Although this might be just me)

Whenever your game crashes, lower your clock speed by -5mhz until you can play crash free. Now repeat the whole process but with the memory clock slider until you have achieved a stable core and memory overclock configuration.

Congrats! You have just overclocked your gpu, check the little "apply on start up" box in msi afterburner and enjoy your new performance boost.


Links:
Msi afterburner and kombuster: https://gaming.msi.com/features/afterburner

Valley Benchmark: https://unigine.com/products/valley/

 

Gpu overclocking guide is now out!

Forgot to say, Even though overclocking is really safe, I am not responsible if you break your card because it simply does not handle overclocking well or for any other reason.

 

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