overclocking the iMac

[carlosbutler]

i am planning to get my first iMac soon. i thought of just going all out and getting the highest end model, ie 24" 3.06Ghz and 4gb(not apple ram)...
but i read somewhere on this forum that the 2.8 and the 3.06 is the same, except just overclocked. so i was wondering if it is at all possible to overclock, and if that statement is true or not. also is it worth paying an extra £112.80 (at educational discount price) to get a CPU that is 260Mhz faster. considering that at the moment one of the PC's i use had 2.6 dual core 64bit cpu, and i think that is plenty fast, even for heavy gaming since i will go for the nVidia 8800 which ever model i go for

 

[bob vansteel]

i am planning to get my first iMac soon. i thought of just going all out and getting the highest end model, ie 24" 3.06Ghz and 4gb(not apple ram)...
but i read somewhere on this forum that the 2.8 and the 3.06 is the same, except just overclocked. so i was wondering if it is at all possible to overclock, and if that statement is true or not. also is it worth paying an extra £112.80 (at educational discount price) to get a CPU that is 260Mhz faster. considering that at the moment one of the PC's i use had 2.6 dual core 64bit cpu, and i think that is plenty fast, even for heavy gaming since i will go for the nVidia 8800 which ever model i go for

they aren't overclocked to 3.06 or 2.8....actually they are underclocked. The penryn chip actually tops out at 3.2, but apple underclocked it to 3.06,2.8, and i think the 2.6 and 2.4 models too...so i think they can be overclocked, but probably only in windows(bootcamp), not exactly sure about in osx.

 

[rfruth]

wouldn't try to OC any Mac product

 

[Muncher]

they aren't overclocked to 3.06 or 2.8....actually they are underclocked. The penryn chip actually tops out at 3.2, but apple underclocked it to 3.06,2.8, and i think the 2.6 and 2.4 models too...so i think they can be overclocked, but probably only in windows(bootcamp), not exactly sure about in osx.

If you want to get technical, ALL chips are underclocked, except the top of the top of the line chips. They make all the chip the same way, then test them and sort them into bins. The chips that pass are clocked at higher speeds and sold at a premium.

EDIT: Cpu overclocking, I believe, is a hardware feature; if Apple didn't build it in, it's not possible. Gpu overclocking can be done, albeit in windows only.

 

[neonblue2]

they aren't overclocked to 3.06 or 2.8....actually they are underclocked. The penryn chip actually tops out at 3.2, but apple underclocked it to 3.06,2.8, and i think the 2.6 and 2.4 models too...so i think they can be overclocked, but probably only in windows(bootcamp), not exactly sure about in osx.

They're not running Penryns.

https://www.macrumors.com/2008/04/28/apple-releases-new-imacs/

 

[trainguy77]

Gpu overclocking can be done, albeit in windows only.

They have apps to do this in OS X too.

http://thomas.perrier.name/index.html
http://thomas.perrier.name/graphiccelerator.html

 

[Muncher]

They have apps to do this in OS X too.

http://thomas.perrier.name/index.html
http://thomas.perrier.name/graphiccelerator.html

I don't think it supports the newest cards; but why overclock under OS X anyway? The OP is coming from a PC, his games will be windows.

 

[trainguy77]

I don't think it supports the newest cards; but why overclock under OS X anyway? The OP is coming from a PC, his games will be windows.

Depends which of the two you use. But yes that is true.

 

[bob vansteel]

They're not running Penryns.

https://www.macrumors.com/2008/04/28/apple-releases-new-imacs/

yes they are....penryns are also called intel extreme chips...and santa-rosa is just the platform of the chip(i.e. centrino,core 2 duo,etc.) however the penryn has all the benifits of the next gen montiva platform, notably its large FSB.