4 Computer Parts You Need to Be Familiar with Before Overclocking Your PC

This article will provide a basic overview of four critical components to the overclocking process. You should already be aware that changing any of your PC's hardware settings (voltage, for example) could and most likely will nullify any product protection plan you may have.

My explanations and definitions offered here come mostly from personal experience with overclocking my own PC, something that has greatly increased it's performance in intensive applications (e.g. first-person shooter games, audio-production software).

Before we win, you should know that I went about this in the wrong way--I tried to rush the process before understanding key concepts of PC hardware. Trust me when I say that you don't want to do this. Finally, DO NOT TRUST A PIECE OF SOFTWARE TO DO YOUR OVERCLOCKING FOR YOU. If you take away nothing else, please do take away this standard: whenever possible, tweak your hardware settings from your BIOS and not from Windows.

[Disclaimer: the following terms are relevant to Athlon processors and motherboards that support Athlon processors as those are the only processors I am familiar with. In general, most of the explanations will apply equally sufficiently to Intel, but there are a few discrepancies that I will try my best to present.]

Without further ado, here are the top 10 things you should know about a PC before overclocking:

1) CPU speed/CPU frequency: