Advice

[Garry Russell]

Locally, the dealers are quite clear on this

Any over clocking at all and ALL warranties are voided.

Garry

[TSR2]

Yes mate, but these muppets are building systems and selling them already overclocked, thats why its odd. The manufacturer won't warranty the components, so I wonder if these guys will.

[VEGAS]

My supplier (Chillblast) warranty all parts and labour for two yrs including free collect and return.

Partly the reason why I chose them.

I hope the overclocking on my CPU won't shorten or risk its shelf life too much.

[SkippyBing]

I hope the overclocking on my CPU won't shorten or risk its shelf life too much.

In my experience of over-clocking just about every PC I've ever had in an attempt to eke out every last bit of performance it doesn't have a noticeable effect on the life span. Obviously there are perfectly good reasons why it in fact does shorten the chip's life, but it's unlikely to fail after six months if it's been set up properly. I've got an over-clocked AMD chip that is now running my media server after an upgrade to my main box, I've had it for at least four years and if anything it's run more now than when it was in the main machine as I'm a big fan of having something on in the background while I work. Mind you I'm not sure it actually needs to be over-clocked to run a media server....

[tonymadge]

but these muppets are building systems and selling them already overclocked

Way off the mark Ben....
look at my specs and then peek round the internet you can see that overclocking is not a problem done correctly.
Overclockers are a quality company that sells lots of stuff and provides a warranty on everything they sell. The i7 920 has a fantastic reputation for being able to clock very high indeed. its base 2.4Ghz is not worth running at when you can comfortably run it a lot lot higher without even tweaking voltages!! In fact why buy the top i7 when the 920 does as much??
Same for the AMD Phenom the new one 965? I think is 3.4ghz standard and the cheaper 955 at 3.2ghz will match it in the overclocking stakes.
My 550 dual core can run all four cores (unlocked the other two cores) at 3.6ghz and on air, thats with a better cooler. However it can hit 3.9ghz with careful tweaking, but at 3.6ghz it does all I want and at £80 for a four core CPU with 6mb cache running at 3.6Ghz I would say thats pretty good
AMD released the Black Edition for the clockers and likewise Intel made the I7 very clockable as they new that was wanted by enthusiasts, of course they talk about warranties etc.. its ACE (Arse covering excercise)

My daughter has a Astra Twin Top 1.9CDTI now that goes very well but pop in the sport button and it really flies, likewise on 5th Gear TV show the other day some guy was testing an Italian supercar and that had a sports button...thats overclocking the mapping ignition etc, so its a the real thing nowadays.
Anyone who buys an i7 and runs it at stock speed is wasting their money

[TSR2]

Difference being mate, when you press the sport button it doesn't invalidate your warranty. There are guys out there who can get 600bhp from a Rover T16 engine, but when the car was new theres no way they would have modified it like that on a new 20 grand car. Just saying, I wouldn't spend £1500 on something that was new that came with no warranty. I'm not saying overclocking is bad, I just don't have 1500 to spend on something that might break because its so far outside its design limits its stupid. All well doing that on and old machine that isn't of consequence anymore, but its a bit rich for my blood.

[tonymadge]

I can see your point Ben, but nowadays Intel ans AMD produce CPU's that are capable of overclocking and despite their claims they encourage it, AMD produce a bit of software called AMD Overdrive and the new I7's are coming out with turbo boost in the guise of auto overclocking.
I think the bad old days when everything was locked down you really had to work at it to eek out extra Mhz are long gone.
Of course if your crazy and not careful you will stuff it up and thats your fault, but you really have to go mad to stuff up an i7
I would run an i7 at 3.6Ghz on air with no voltage tweeks with ease

[Jason32]

Only a few days to go for my new p.c. delivery...now getting into FSX mood more aswell...just had my delivery of Horizons vol. 1,2,3 VFR Photo Scenery.

[tonymadge]

Just a thought Jason. The 2 x SLI cards you have bought will be blistering in speed as the 295 is the best, however just remember if your running more than one monitor you cant in SLI... I know this from experience after buying an SLI system way back from the shyte hawks Mesh, they lied saying it would run multiple monitors in SLI, it did not.
The only way round it is to have a third graphics card to run a 2nd monitor and the 2x GTX295's run in SLI driving the other monitor.
Tony

[Chris Sykes]

Tony, you can with the more modern cards... see Nvidias page on this http://uk.slizone.com/object/sli_multi_ ... onfoptions