This is one of the more popular questions amongst newbies in the PC building arena. I’ve been asked it many times over and have yet to find a good, short n’ sweet explanation of what it is that I could link to instead of explaining it myself each time. So I decided to make that link myself : )

To understand what over clocking is, you need to understand the basics of how a computer component operates. Essentially, what a processor, graphics card, or memory does is take a little bit of electricity, run a series of operations and calculations using that electricity, takes a bit more electricity, runs more operations and calculations, and so on and so forth. These are called “cycles”, and cycles are expressed in Hertz. That’s the “1.5GHz” reading you’re used to seeing on a computer’s spec sheets.

What over clocking does is force your computer to run more cycles in a given period of time. So, instead of performing 1.5 billion cycles, or 1.5 Gigahertz, you force your computer to run 2.5 billion cycles per minute, or 2.5 Gigahertz.

As complicated as it sounds, that’s really at it is. Simple enough, huh?