FSB Overclocking

      Overclocking the front side bus isn’t usually worth the time or risk to gamers, as CPU and RAM speeds are not usually the “bottleneck,” or the cause of decreased performance in PC games. Everything about a game that is not handled by either the graphics card or sound card is handled by the CPU, so things like AI (the “brains” of any computer controlled opponent you may face), or scripts (the games way of keeping track of important events/information) would all benefit from some FSB overclocking. Unlike GPU overclocking, the FSB is not overclocked through conventional software, but is instead altered through various settings in the system bios (the motherboards “software” that is executed when you turn your computer on). This fact alone makes overclocking the FSB that much more difficult, as it is easy for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing to change something they shouldn’t, breaking their PC in the process (if they can even manage to access their system bios).

      Settings of importance in the system BIOS that deal with overclocking include the front side bus, basically the middle-man between the CPU and the rest of the system, the CPU multiplier which, together with the FSB determine the CPU speed, the system voltages, which determine how much power is being delivered to various components of the mother board, and the memory clock, which controls the speed of the systems RAM. The process of overclocking these components is similar to overclocking the GPU (basically guess and check), but because there are so many more variables, and less safety measures in place, it is much easier to irreparably damage your PC if the settings are not in the correct ratio to one another.