Jonathan Ong's Blog

Simple answer: NO. There are advantages and disadvantages to overclocking, but keep in mind that processors are meant to run in their default configuration. Overclocking is not the recommended state. Unless you have spare cash and just want to test the limits of your computer, overclocking is not recommended.

Limited Warranty – CPU’s generally have about 3 years of warranty. However, if you toast your CPU from overclocking, there’s no way you’ll have it replaced unless you somehow convince them that it wasn’t due to overclocking. GPU’s on the other hand many times have lifetime warranties, and NVIDIA’s GPU’s are meant to run at high temperatures. Thus, you can usually overclock a GPU and get away with it for a lifetime.

Power Consumption – Power consumption increases rapidly as you overclock. Take a look at this graph from Anandtech’s review on Intel’s i5 655k. Notice that after 4GHz there’s a large spike in power consumption, but before that it’s actually more power efficient to overclock. This however only takes into account the power consumption of the CPU. In fact, power consumption is one of the most expensive parts of having a fast computer. For every 100W of power you use an hour, expect an increase of $130 in your annual electricity bill in California.

Increased Temperatures – Not only will the CPU run hotter, but so will everything inside the case. You’re going to need more fans, which costs more power. Your ambient air temperature will also increase, making your room or house even hotter. This will drive up costs in air conditioning if you need it.

Noise – Due to the increased amounts of fan, your computer will become quite noisy. You would probably want water cooling or low noise fans to mitigate this effect.

Limited Benefit – For the most part, you can’t tell if there’s a 10% increase in speed. This is especially true if you don’t use your computer for anything computationally demanding. You may want to overclock for say Folding@home, but what’s the point? You don’t derive any benefit for folding, and folding right now is a waste of time.

Thus, the small benefits of overclocking are greatly outweighed by the large cost of overclocking. I overclocked my CPU, but only by about 10%, and I no longer run folding@home all day, so it runs cool. Casual overclocking like this is the most anyone should do.

For a while I folded@home a lot as a hobby and to actually use my computer to its full potential. However, I slowly stopped as I began to realize many things. For me, the only use of folding@home for the average person is as a benchmark.

1. Electricity is ridiculously expensive. According to the DOE, on average the price per kilowatt hour is $.1543 in California. Assuming you have a 500 watt computer running 24/7 for a month, that turns out to be $57.40. That’s about $659.63 per year on average. Keep in mind that you are still using a portion of this power regardless if you’re folding and regardless if you’re computer is on, and this price does not include your A/C. Are you willing to spend close to $700 a year donating your CPU cycles?
2. Computers make considerable amounts of heat and noise when run at 100% utilization. This will make your dwelling much hotter and increase utility costs for A/C. It would be beneficial if you’re freezing though.
3. CPUs do not have lifetime warranty. GPUs sometimes do, but right now CPUs make more points per day than GPUs and have higher PPD/watt ratios. Sure, you can build a computer based on GPUs, but your utility bill will go up the roof. I’m not willing to fry my CPU since I won’t get a free replacement if it fries.
4. Computer speeds are increasing exponentially. You may fold one year and get 1 million points, but with the same amount of money, you can probably fold only next year and get much more than 1 million points. Your years worth of folding will be trumped by a few months of folding in a couple of years.
5. You don’t get any tax deductions. Usually when you donate money to a charity, you get tax deductions, but you don’t get any for folding@home. I’m not sure if you will if you make a foundation that takes donations and uses it on computers that only do folding@home, but the average person won’t get any tax deductions.
6. There are no rewards for folding@home. Thus, there’s no justification for the costs other than your feeling of contribution to society.
7. Has the folding@home project made any significant contributions to science? I can’t seem to find anything on this topic.

My personal opinion is that time and money can be better spent elsewhere. Why not just save the money and donate it to a charity? Or pay for someone else’s electricity bill if they can’t afford it. Buy two cheaper computers and donate one of them. There are much better ways to contribute to society.

So who should be folding@home? Primarily institutions.

• Computer enthusiasts with extra cash, but this money could be better spent elsewhere.
• Charitable foundations who wish to “contribute to society”, but, again, this money could be better spent elsewhere.
• Research groups who get their computers and electricity for cheap or for free, don’t pay any taxes, and are pressured to use all their grant money. Basically, Stanford.

For me, the main contribution folding@home is an easily available program that actually utilizes parallel processing. There aren’t many programs that are coded well on a parallel platform and are actually useful. Hopefully this will teach developers how to code on parallel processors efficiently.

Here are short thoughts written on my iPhone starting when I got off the train in Aberdeen, Maryland.

The weather is just disgusting. It’s usually 90 degrees in the day, 75 degrees at night, and it’s almost always 100% humid. I’ll be sweating, but I wouldn’t dry.

There are basically no Asians. I’m pretty sure if Asians wanted to live in a hot and humid place, they’d live in Taiwan or something.

I suddenly see an increase in obesity rates. Marylanders are just fatter… Probably because the weather isn’t enjoyable and there’s seriously nothing to do around here.

I haven’t seen so much green in my life since I went to Germany and Austria.

AT&T reception sucks. Everyone here has Verizon or Sprint. I’m the only person I’ve seen with an iPhone.

There are so many bugs! Flies kept landing in me. I actually saw grasshoppers since there’s actually grass here. At nights I actually hear 100 types if insects making noises. There were dead ants on my bicycle seat after I left it out in the rain. Spiderwebs are everywhere, one grew on my friends trunk in a single day. The best of all, there was a toad chilling outside the wall on the balcony.

I thought there was a 24 Hour Fitness everywhere! Well that’s a shame… At least I knew that LA Fitness wouldn’t be here.

I was so bored waiting for the Amtrak, I decided to buy a pack of cigarettes. A pack of Parliament Lights cost $9, but they also don’t have matches and won’t sell you a lighter, and people around here don’t smoke so I can’t ask someone for a light. Biggest waste of $9 ever.

I feel as though I stepped back 30 years in fashion years. Everyone seems to shop at Costco or something.

There are only local banks, I’ve had $800 in my wallet for the past week since I couldn’t find a Bank of America or Chase close by.

Guys love to cuss and drink beer. It might just be a military thing, but the people I work with are civilian researchers. It’s probably because there’s seriously nothing else to do out here… Hence fat people.

The people I’ve seen don’t really care for music. I never hear music blasting or someone singing or anything. They’d rather talk about something. But the music I do hear I love since there’s no black music here, just good old rock.

Everyone’s freaking married! Except the guy I’m living with, but he has a girlfriend who lives far, and this postdoctoral I met, but he’s on the heavy side. It seems like the thing to do here…

Unlike California, there are so many sports teams here that aren’t too far away and are rivals. Thus, people rare really into sports, but I think it’s just cause the weather doesn’t allow anyone to play sports themselves.

Everyone thinks everyone’s an asshole, but I personally don’t think so. This comes from someone who loves New York City and doesn’t think they’re assholes. Do you know who I think are assholes? Cantonese people. They are the definition of asshole. Maybe Californians are made of assholes too, or maybe I’m one too. I do know my bitch radar is off… I don’t find bitchy girls annoying.

Why mittens are better than gloves (for the casual snowboarder at least).

• More efficient snowball manufacturing due to lack of spaces between fingers
• More efficient snowball blocking due to the same reason
• Inability to use the finger
• More efficient use of a heat-pack since the heat-pack will actually touch your fingers
• Ability to form a strong fist, though not necessarily for punching since mittens are equivalent to very light boxing gloves
• Your hands are warmer since your fingers share each others heat and the glove has less surface area.
• No finger hassle
• You feel five years old

And who actually uses each individual finger in the snow? Buy a mitten. No one else is doing it.

What is Christmas to you? A day to spend with the family? A day to spend with those you care for? A week of giving and receiving gifts? A week to share happiness? A day to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? A month of holiday music? The question is: why don’t you do these things everyday you can? There is nothing stopping you.

Like almost every other American holiday, Christmas to me is just another day I can’t In-N-Out or do anything remotely productive. There’s no reason to be happier or celebrate traditions and history more than any other day, it’s just another day the machine tells us what to do. I look around and all I see is the commercialization of Christmas. Companies push consumers to spend money they don’t have on products no one would ever buy for themselves for people who would never use them. Gifts to mean are meant to be cherished and symbolic for a greater meaning, and a Christmas gift means nothing when its worth is only as a Christmas present.

Christmas is not primarily a Christian holiday. According to Wikipedia, Christmas is based on three different dates: exactly nine months after Jesus’ believed conception date, a historical Roman festival, and the winter solstice. If Jesus was actually born on Christmas, he would’ve probably died from the cold. Christmas was just another holiday that Christians used to lure pagans to Christianity like changing the Sabbath to Sunday. By making celebrations very similar, conversion to Christianity would be efficient.

Now Christmas is just a mix of various Western holidays celebrating the winter solstice. Almost no Christmas traditions are actually Christian other than, for example, the Nativity of Jesus. Gift-giving, Santa Clause,  mistletoes, and other traditions are obviously not Christian and are derived from pagan traditions from various Western cultures. If you’re Christian, why bother with these other traditions? They should mean nothing to you. You should be trying to give everyday, not just on Christmas.

Of course, the purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, but why don’t we celebrate his birth everyday? Sure, Christmas should be merry, but why should we be more merry on Christmas than any other day? Because everyone else is merry and attempts to share their happiness? Happiness is something to be shared everyday, not just Christmas. When I see people feigning happiness simply due to Christmas, I lose a little faith in humanity.

I look around an amazing at how enthusiastic some people are about Christmas. What’s the purpose of Christmas trees other than just to look at? If I had a tree, I would leave it in my house all year long cause to me, every freaking day is Christmas. Why are people so excited about holiday music on KOST 103.5? I listen to Christmas music all year long. I don’t give out gifts on Christmas because I don’t want people to be obliged to give me gifts, and I don’t like receiving gifts because very rarely do I receive a gift that is actually useful to me. When I see something I know a friend would like no matter what time of year it is, I buy it for them. Like religion to most people, Santa Clause is just another myth that creates a fake sense of happiness to people. It doesn’t need to be a holiday for me to spend time with my family. Who needs Christmas, or as a matter of fact, any holiday? Everyday is a holiday.