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The popularity of overclocking has undergone extensive growth within the tech enthusiast community as a response to the increasing costs of maintaining a cutting-edge yet affordable PC. Overclocking serves as a solution to the high prices associated with today's latest processors. Trying to keep pace with the latest releases in processor technologies can become costly, as new releases of increased speed ranges become available at an exponential rate compared to just a few years ago.
No longer do just a few megahertz (MHz) separate the fastest processors from the slowest within a single processor family. For just one processor design, today's market offers processor speed ranges of several hundred MHz, though the manufacturer's associated pricing strategies of this business model do not benefit you. Processor manufacturers spend millions of dollars to hype the "latest designs," when in reality the newest processors are little more than the same processor core operating at a higher MHz rating. The pricing of each speed-rated processor varies as widely as the hype surrounding the MHz rating game. As illustrated by Figure 2-1, where we look at the Intel Pentium 4 processor as an example, the cost of the higher-speed processors often exceeds the cost of the lower-speed processors of the same processor family by hundreds of dollars. Overclocking successfully circumvents the industry's hype by working to obtain maximum performance from the more cost-efficient lower spectrum of a particular processor family.
Overclocking allows users to select lower speed, and thus lower cost, grades of a processor family, then increase the clock speed of the processor core to a level that is comparable to the upper-range processors of that processor family. A properly designed overclocking implementation can often exceed the speed ratings of the latest processors available while utilizing much lower-cost processors to minimize expense. Overclocking existing systems may prove more problematic compared to building a system with overclocking in mind, but the potential for increasing operating speeds by several percent still remains a reality for the widest range of designs.
Processor manufacturers are well aware of the overclocking community, but most do little to circumvent such efforts, since the majority of mainstream computer users know little about the processes and procedures involved in overclocking. Still, the industry has implemented various features to deter overclocking attempts over the years. Such attempts have been implemented across all stages of processor design, from the earliest engineering to the latest fabrication stages of production. Some manufacturers have even attempted complete locking of processor core operating speeds, known as clock locking. Fortunately, the cost of implementing clock locking has limited its introduction within the retail market segment of the industry.
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