The anwer for your questions are; yes & yes.

Overclocking helps roughly at the same ratio you overclock. This is quite true for vide encoding, and for many other math-intensive programs.

I am a happy overclocker since 2,5 years, running my Qx9650 CPU at 3,85GHz (stock speed is 3GHz). This is an 28% increase in computing power, and I see rendering times that are only 78% of the render time compared to running at 3GHz. I have not experienced ANY problems, and this computer is in everyday heavy use.

You ARE stressing your computer by overclocking - for sure!!! Therefore you should NOT overclock if you don't know what you are doing. You should not attempt to overclock "el cheap"o mobos. Asus have excellent quality mobos, the more pricey ones can be overclocked easily. They even specify quite often how "high you can go". The CPU need to be cooled properly. Personally I prefer the big forced coolers, since they cool also some of the hotter mobo components better, compared to liquid coolers. My CPU never runs above 63 °C, even at full speed and 100% load.

In my opinion, overclocking is OK, but you must know how to do it safely.

Christian

Overclocking "can" improve performance and rendering times. If you don't know what you're doing you can actually degrade performance or worse FUBAR your CPU or other components! W/out getting to technical there's many things to consider when over clocking i.e. bus speeds, memory timing/voltages, processor clocking/voltages. Need to really do your homework before overclocking. The only place where I think overclocking really helps is rendering and gaming.

Overclocking IS stressful on your hardware which is why you need high quality CPU cooler, memory and hardware that is designed for over clocking. Some haredware won't work if the bus is overclocked and it can ware out your hardware faster so high quality hardware is a must.

You need to be aware that over clocking by nature introduces instability and you'll have to know how to troubleshoot and when to roll back if your system becomes unstable. It can be very difficult to troubleshoot software problems like some that we are expierencing w/ Vegas 9 if your system is overclocked. Don't even ask for assistance if you havent rolled back to normal clocking if you're troubleshooting.

I.e. my Red Frame errors I've been getting, the first thing I did was roll back to normal clocking and verify that the problem can be reproduced under normal operating conditions. If it can then I am almost positive that the issues are not my machine. You really need to baseline how your machine works with all the hardware and software installed in normal operating conditions. Once everything is no less than 100% stable then begin the overclocking process. It can become quite combersome if you dont have the patience.

Also note that some processors just cant be overclocked. I had a P4 that had the same batch code where 70% of the CPUs were supposed to be overclockable. I must have gotten one of the 30% that wasn't because even a 1Mhz increase caused the PC to freeze after about 20 minutes.

I never recommend overclocking to novices.

It's my hunch if you need to ask the questions if you should or not overclock you shouldn't.

If you do want to overclock DO YOUR HOMEWORK, read the forums about your board, CPU, recommended hardware and DONT ask questions on this forum how to troubleshoot VEGAS if your PC is overclocked and you haven't tested and reproduced the problem with everthing set to defaults.

BTW, w/ all the issues that I'm having w/ Vegas' Red Frames and am working Sony Tech I'm NOT overclocking my machine right now.

"1 Does over clocking help with video editing, rendering etc?"

Very little effect in anything other than rendering. If time is money to you, then OC'ing may have a benefit. For me, stability is paramount.

I don't really care if a render takes two hours instead of 2 hours and thirty minutes, but if a person making their living in video editing can gain an hour's productivity a day, that has an impact.

I'll also point out that if overclocking were safe and sane, Intel would be marketing that Qx9650 chip as 3.85GHz instead of 3GHz. If running it at 3.85GHz was ok, they would have no reason or incentive to claim it was only 3GHz. If it really was reliable at a faster speed then they would certainly bill it as that faster speed so that they could attract more customers and charge a higher fee. For whatever reason, Intel thinks that the stock speed is the fastest the chip should run. I figure if the company that designs and produces the chip knows the safest speed, i'm not gonna second-guess them.

I am certainly no expert, in fact I didn't overclock until fairly recently under the guise of 'stability'. However, I will tell you that the only time you run into instability is when you push the system too far and there is software to ensure you haven't done that.

The result, for me, is that my system encodes 50% faster with no loss of stability and it didn't cost me a dime in upgrades.

So, my opinion has done a 180 over the last year. I will likely always overclock going forward. Not extreme overclocking, but even moderate overclocking makes the system generally more responsive and can have a huge effect on video editing.

It's almost impossible to 'burn out' a modern Intel chip, they have thermal protection that won't allow it to happen (see Tom's Hardware). AMD is another story, but if you run Prime 95 (or equivalent) to ensure your not getting errors, you should be home free.

I can tell you that a bad device driver, faulty cable, or any host of other issues will cause more instability that a well done overclock!

Chienworks is right on target!

Yes... you can gain a little more speed by overclocking but nearly always at the expense of stabilty. And you wil likely spend more time tweaking and cleaning up after overclocking than you will save in render times.

How many times do you really need to render a project? With experience you can estimate how things will look in the preview window. I rarely render more than once during an entire (one hour) project. And then plan to do it overnight or over lunch.

>>>If running it at 3.85GHz was ok, they would have no reason or incentive to claim it was only 3GHz. <<<

They do though. All chips should be the same ( same manufacturing process ), but they are not, so they get tested and Intel marks them according to how they performed when tested. As they get better at manufacturing these you get more chips that are able to run at higher speeds, but they know most people will not pay premium prices top of the line always costs. So they have to sell a lot of chips at lower prices and marked at lower speeds even though they could run faster.

You may get lucky and get a far better chip than what you paid for, then again you may get one that can barely pull off a few mhz above its rated speed.

For those who overclock here is the great guide from Gigabyte Technical Marketing:
Push your i7 920 to 4GHz with the GA-EX58-EXTREME

It may work with other boards too.

Here is mine i7 920:

deusx is absolutely correct in his description of Intel's CPU manufacturing and marketing. Intel has a huge processor and memory manufacturing facility here in Albuquerque (actually Rio Rancho, a suburb.) I know a lot of engineers there and I can confirm they have told me exactly the same thing that deusx has posted above.

I was never a fan of overclocking and I'm sure that are lots of posts here from me in the past warning people not to overclock. However, a few years ago I bought an Intex D975XBX2 motherboard that was among the first Intel boards to officially support overclocking and I thought I'd give it a try. I was running a QX6700 Core 2 Quad Extreme CPU rated at 2.66 Ghz, I ran it up to 3.2 Ghz and it's been running flawlessly at that speed for three years now. This machine often renders for days at a time and it has been the most stable computer I have ever owned. Of course, I keep the chip cool with a massive Thermalright Ultra-120 CPU cooler and it's all mounted in an Antec 900 case that moves a LOT of air. Higher speed and the higher voltages often required for a successful overclocking creates more heat and excessive heat will definitely shorten the life of a CPU (or any chip for that matter.)

All that said, I sure as heck wouldn't attempt an overclock using the stock Intel CPU cooler. As deusx pointed out it's all about the luck of the draw whether your chip will overclock and be stable.

And the OEM's get the cream of the crop in boards, chips, etc. and the rest is marketed to the consumer market.

"And the OEM's get the cream of the crop in boards, chips, etc."

While that could be true, I have not heard this from my contacts at Intel.

Wow, what a mix of advice! I built my machine according to the Video Guys DIY 7, so I'm sure I've got plenty of cooling. So I might give it a go. Thanks to all who responded.

I've had my QX6700 overclocked from 2.66 to 3.33 Ghz for over 2 years with no stability or component problems - much faster rendering. You do need to get a better cooler than the stock one that comes with your CPU though and have adequate case ventilation. Definitly moniter temps when setting it up and fully load the CPU to 100% while determining your desired OC speed to ensure you are staying with safe core temps.

Q: Has anyone overclocked a Pentium D?

Yes, a Pentium D -- the gets-hot one but still solid after all these years. I have plenty of ventilation and replaced my CPU fan with an aftermarket one. My Mobo is an Asus.

I've shied away from overclocking though I've had computers since 1997 -- and built my current Pentium D 2.8 Ghz one back in 2006. Can't afford to upgrade CPU and Mobo for at least a couple of years. I don't need to meet deadlines, but having just dipped my toe into 3D terrain (just bought http://www.e-onsoftware.com/products/vue/vue_8_complete/e-on Vue 8 Complete[/link]), render power IS a major issue.

And the so-called minimum system requirements for Vue are ridiculous -- it can take 90 min. to render one frame of decent imagery at good resolution. So even overclocking won't help much since we're dealing with drawing millions of polygons. Using a render farm is really the only sane way to go.

But I still would like to try to consider overclocking my system a bit so that I can at least make lower rez animation renders in Vue without waiting til the cows come home.

Safely, of course.

I would suggest you run Core Temp if you overclock and watch the temperatures. Also, I would not overclock if you have to up the voltage in the BIOS to do so. In addition to that I would run MemTest to make sure your memory is stable after you overclock. Not all memory can handle it.

John

Thanks for the info, John, though... maybe I got a bit carried away with the reading the subject here. I don't really know what to do with a .bin file (MemTest) -- though I could Google it, and CoreTemp doesn't work with Pentium Ds.

So probably best I raincheck this idea -- for as mentioned above, one better do one's homework before attempting this.