Okay Bob and Der, sorry its taking so long (finals just finished up for me and I have not had a lot of time otherwise with work). I finished re-vamping the first half of Bob's guide and this is what I have so far:
Overclocking 101
Version 1.0 by bob_on_the_cob, ice91785, der_meister
Disclaimer about how if you mess up your PC it is not the fault of the guide or its writers; we are not to be held accountable for any hardware issues or problems that may result.
Recommended/Required Software:
· Temperature Monitoring Program(s)
ü CORETEMP: This is only a viable solution when using an Intel-based Procesor; it is very basic software that will give you an idea of the temperatures of each of your cores within your Intel CPU.
ü SPEEDFAN: Can use this temperature monitoring program with any CPU. It lays out temps in a very nice graph; bit more complicate than other but worth learning. This software also has ability to monitor fans and hard drives.
ü MOTHERBOARD UTILITY: Chances are if you are using a non-OEM motherboard (Abit, ASUS, DFI, Gigabyte, MSI, etc.) then you probably got a disc full of utilities in the motherboard’s box – this would probably include a temperature monitoring utility. Since it is designed to work specifically with your motherboard’s sensors, often it may be the most accurate.
· Specification/Information Program
ü CPU-Z: This is an awesome utility that tells you anything you may need to know about the guts of your rig. It includes (but not limited to):
§ CPU make, model, frequency, multiplier, revision, voltage
§ Motherboard make, model, BIOS revision
§ RAM make, model, frequency, timings
ü CPUBURNIN: A good program for finding maximum temperatures of your CPU. Not really the best for stability testing.
· Stress Test/Stability Program(s)
ü ORTHOS: Great for stability testing; puts CPU cores (up to two per instance) on a full load to verify your system is stable enough to use without crashing or locking up. If you have a quad core, simply open the program two times to test all four cores. It’s pretty user-friendly
ü PRIME95: Not as user friendly as Orthos, but the same idea. Can only stress one core per program instance so if you have an ‘X’-core CPU, you would need to open ‘X’ instances of PRIME for 100% load. A quick google search will help show you how to accomplish this…
ü MEMTEST86+: This you will need when you begin to overclock your rig’s RAM. It’s easiest to burn the .iso image to a CD and boot straight from it. It stressed the system’s memory to ensure its stability. Unstable memory = corrupt OS installation which can sometimes not become apparent perhaps a week or two (or more) after the original OS install.
· Motherboard Drivers/Updates
ü No matter the motherboard you have, you are going to want to be sure you have the latest drivers installed via the manufacturer’s website. Pay closest attention to chipset drivers and storage controller drivers. It may also be ideal to flash your BIOS to the latest version but this should be done on a case-by-case basis (if it ain’t broken, don’t fix it as they say).
Hardware Requirement(s):
· 3rd Party (or sometimes high-end OEM) Motherboard
ü If you purchased your rig from a local or online retailer (Best Buy, Circuit City, Dell.com, etc.) chances are you probably will not be able to overclock. These motherboards are generally not as feature rich as performance motherboards are and lack the ability to overclock your hardware from the system’s BIOS.
If you plan on purchasing a decent motherboards board, some are (in no particular order): Abit, ASUS, DFI, Gigabyte, MSI, and Intel’s Bad Axe or Extreme Series. Lately, XFX and eVGA have released some pretty solid boards as well.
· Aftermarket Processor Cooling
ü You can use the stock Intel/AMD heatsink to begin your overclock, but generally aftermarket cooling will offer better results. A better air cooling solution (includes a heatsink with a fan) will run you about $30 to $60 USD. Decent brands to look for are: Arctic Cooling, Scyth, Tuniq, ZEROcooling, and Zalman to name a few. Thermaltake and ASUS also make some okay cooling solutions
A good watercooling solution can be $200+. I recommend getting your feet wet in the overclocking world before dropping that kind of cash.
· Non-Raid Hard Drive Setup
ü If you currently have a rig that has your hard drives set up in a RAID array, you need to find a way to either turn it off (without losing your data of course) or to find another rig to overclock with. I say this because part of overclocking includes pushing your system until it is no longer stable and gives you a few bad boot sequences. This will usually mess up RAID arrays (especially RAID 0). Just to be cautious use a different hard drive setup until you know what your rig can do.
· PC Chassis with Good Air Flow
ü The better the air flow through your rig, the better overclocking results you will achieve. Good airflow = good temperatures. Good temperatures = higher overclock. You want to find a case that has intake and exhaust vents, and air can linearly find its way across the inside of the case. I sniped a picture from google images to show what I mean:

Looking at the above picture shows the linearity of airflow you want to achieve. If you are using a case that has fans on the side-panel, I would generally use these as intake fans. If you are using a case that has a blow-hole on the top, I would use that as an exhaust. Don’t get too fan crazy though as more than 4 fans (to me anyway) turns your rig into a jet plane sounding like its ready to take off and can be very loud.
Another thing that many people are lacking in their case is good wire management. It will obviously be tough for air to easily flow through a case if there are cables blocking this flow. Tie down and tuck all your extra cabling from your PSU, HDDs, and optical drives. If you want to see the best of the best, Hothardware’s Sladesurfer is probably the most amazing I have seen. Some of his work can be seen at http://hothardware.com/cs/forums/p/35237/287501.aspx#287501