Gamers or enthusiasts that want their hardware to run as fast as possible may still want to overclock. Your computer is likely bottle-necked by other things - perhaps a mechanical hard drive, if you don’t have solid-state storage - so you may not see a noticeable performance difference most of the time. However, overclocking has become less critical over time - where overclocking once offered a more responsive desktop and faster performance in Microsoft Office, computers have become powerful enough that most users probably won’t even notice the difference. The advantages to overclocking are clear: You get a faster CPU that can perform more operations per second. If you have a standard CPU, you probably won’t be able to tinker with it much.

If you want to build the most powerful gaming PC imaginable with a water-cooling system so you can push its hardware to the limits with overclocking, you’ll need to take this into account when you buy the components and make sure you buy overclock-friendly hardware.

(Look for CPUs with “K” in their model number.)

Intel sells more CPUs with unlocked multipliers, targeted at enthusiasts that want to overclock and squeeze every bit of performance out of the CPU. Many motherboards and Intel CPUs ship with locked multipliers, preventing you from tinkering with their values and overclocking your CPU. You may not even be able to overclock your CPU. It may become physically damaged if you don’t provide additional cooling, or it may be unstable and cause your computer to blue-screen or restart. This can speed up your CPU - and therefore speed up your computer if your computer is limited by its CPU - but the CPU will produce additional heat. You can increase the CPU’s speed by setting a higher clock rate or multiplier in the computer’s BIOS, forcing it to perform more operations per second. However, you’re often not limited to that CPU speed. If you run your CPU at that speed with proper cooling, it should perform fine without giving you any problems. Your computer’s CPU comes from the factory set to run at a certain maximum speed.

Benefits of overclocking cpu