TheOverclocker Issue 41 | Page 15

as far as ride sharing is concerned which is the sole relationship they have with cars in general . Moreover , this individual is stating that any differences in power units , suspension setups , transmission , or any other part of the car is meaningless for most people as it doesn ’ t alter or make for better ride sharing experiences .
This is what it comes down to when a PC DIY or GAMING fan says overclocking is pointless or doesn ’ t matter . They are saying that given that it makes no difference in how CS : GO plays , it is pointless . Since these massively flawed sentiments are being broadcast into the real world , they have real world consequences and they are as follows .
The rise of RGB has become a distinguishing characteristic of PC components . We are now in an era where quite literally what makes one board different from another is the lighting . How we ended up here is simply because all business will cater to the lowest common denominator as to reach the largest audience , especially with something like motherboards . Such components are notoriously hard to sell ( they are not complete products after all ) and any method available to simplify this buying process on the consumer side will be exploited . So imagine a situation where end users are not able to objectively tell the difference between components , as they are seemingly all playing CS : GO and other multiplayer games exclusively . How would any vendor which makes these components communicate the value in their particular board in any meaningful way besides saying theirs is reliable ? The truth is they can ’ t . All of these vendors have the proverbial hands tied because the one way in which they could express their investment isn ’ t being appreciated . As such they are led to a place where they need only deal with rudimentary things such as LEDs . This is where overclocking comes in . In overclocking , all the LEDs in the world won ’ t make for a faster or a better board . What makes one better than the other is how it was designed , how it was laid out , the
UEFI or BIOS , the software it places at your disposal and how easily it allows one to get down to actual overclocking and not mucking about with board issues .
The board that has no problem running 4133MHz C11 vs the one that can ’ t do 3600 C11 is something that the gaming framework can ’ t tell you , just as using Uber or Lyft won ’ t tell me anything about the differences between particular cars past the superficial differences . The situation is dire in the PC space because , unlike with automobiles , you can ’ t appreciate the ride stiffness or softness for example . In as far as interacting with the motherboard or DRAM you put it in the machine , it works and you forget about it . Be it you bought 3,466MhHz Hynix IC based memory or a 3866MHz B-die based ( more on B-die later ) kit . There ’ s no way to materially tell the difference between the two when looking at how each kit will affect gaming performance . The same will apply to a motherboard that can operate DRAM at these frequencies .
Overclockers though , overclockers can tell the difference and it ’ s not them saying they “ feel ” it . They literally measure it . They compete for the 1.7s advantage or the 1.1fps difference this may make . They are the ones who can appreciate the difference between a motherboard that can push memory to 4GHz using a 1T command rate vs one that can only do 2T . These things matter outside the context of gaming and there ’ s no way to bring them into relevance for gaming or gamers per se .
Overclocking and overclockers are in part responsible for so many things that are taken for granted . The work that goes into bringing out a component in whichever form it eventually reaches the market in , is mostly hidden from the general public , so it is understandable that there ’ s a certain level of appreciation that is lost . That is perhaps something that both vendors and overclockers need to deal with , but that has nothing to do with the merits or validity of the overclocking enterprise itself .
The advent of liquid cooling for example , is a direct result of what overclockers were doing in an attempt to increase clock frequencies . Tuning in general of PC parts was started by overclockers . Those who would push the envelope as far as they could . The ones who lived at the edge competed at the
Issue 41 | 2017 The OverClocker 15