I remember a time not that long ago that OverClocking was a mystery or dark art to most and then it became a needed skill for gamers! Now it seems to have evolved into a profession with the likes of Fugger, k|ingp|n and Shamino at the top of the pack! Those who are into performance computers at all will recognize these names immediately! They are the ones who have been breaking all the OverClocking records and getting paid to do it!
OVERCLOCKING a high-end computer is, in a way, like speed-tuning an already fast car. In both cases, you'd go for pushing up top models, rather than, say, speeding up a Pentium III – or a Yugo – these days.
Both activities involve a tremendous amount of adjustments to both the engines, the surrounding hardware and to the, well, control system. Cooling a CPU has become as sophisticated, if not more, as cooling a twin-turbo V8 engine. And, both activities are, at least at the top end, getting prohibitively expensive for most of the 'general public'.
The only major differences are that computer tuning evolves muchfaster – as do computers, after all – and has somewhat less risk to one's life and limb. The chances of being scarred by pouring dry ice, or accidentally drinking a cup of LN2 instead of your Evian, or even getting fried by some loose electrical wire there, are lower than slamming yourself at 300+ km/h into a wall while trying to tame an uncontrollable overtuned petrol-laden beast.
