Extreme Overclockers are a Unique Breed

Given that you’re reading our website, chances are good that you’ve thought at some point about overclocking, or even gave it a try yourself. Or it could be, like many of the posters in our forums, your computer is never not overclocked, even if it’s by a little bit. There’s just something about knowing that your computer is working faster than intended… even if it doesn’t make a noticeable difference in the real-world.

I’m one of the people who doesn’t mind applying a rather simple overclock and being done with it, but there are a select few who thrive on finding the highest-possible clock on a particular piece of hardware, whether it be a CPU or graphics card. Tech Radar takes a look at this lifestyle, and delves a little bit deeper into things than most people are aware of.

Kenny Clapham, member of the overclocking team Benchtec, notes that overclocking doesn’t just become a hobby, it can become an obsession. Minor goals to the rest of us might be major goals to professional overclockers, and given that the competition is fierce, the drive to push a component that much harder becomes much rawer. One great thing, though, is that professional overclocking brings people together from all over the world, and that, to me, is one of the coolest aspects of the “sport”.

Before you can go near a flask of LN2, a lot of time is spend raising one value – such as the FSB – under water cooling and then resetting it and moving on to the next. When the big day for testing comes, the sub-zero materials are pulled out and the known stable points are used as a starting position for record attempts.