Quote Originally Posted by Xdeathfire
Basically what overclocking is that all cpus are sold listed with a given speed, but that is misleading since technically any cpu can run at any speed. That given speed is what the cpu will be able to run at the very minimal settings in regard to power supplied and the cooling system in order for normal people without crazy liquid cooling systems and awesome power supplies to run their cpu as stable as possible. By overclocking, you are forcing the cpu to run at a higher speed than normal, but you better have a good power supply as well as very nice fans or even better, liquid cooling. Be warned though that overclocking it too much can burn out the cpu and lead to all sorts of bad thing, but on the other hand it can be awesome since i heard that some crazy japanese guy managed to boot windows xp at arount 7 gigahertz by overclocking.
That's all nice and dandy but such overclocking needs a lot of money and people who have that much cvan afford to always buy the newest hardware anyway. And what is the sense of breaking the guarantee to get 300 instead of 100 fps in Quake 4? If it burns, it costs you even more, I once forgot to remove the plastic cover underneath a new CPU cooler so I have made a painful experience which I don't want to repeat.