smoothrunes Wrote:am I looking at any long term damage from OCing what it is exactly that I need to increase, what signs do I need to look out for that I'm reaching the OC limit etc.
One thing to watch out for is high voltages (vcore). That's a good way to insta-fry your machine. Your CPU often has safegaurds to shutdown before it reaches unsafe temps (although you shouldn't push it that far to begin with) but there are no gaurdrails so-to-speak when you mess with the voltages. Stay (well) below 1.4v to be safe, and if you're paranoid, don't raise it at all unless your machine becomes unstable. Like I said, you can easily squeeze out 400MHz or so without changing voltages.
For temps, just make sure you have decent cooling, and actively monitor them during Dolphin usage. Anything nearing 90 C is a warning that something's wrong. With good cooling, you shouldn't even reach 70 C when really working Dolphin. I've yet to break 60 C under heavy, prolonged Dolphin loads, and my fans are only running at 30%. Anything from 40 C ~ 80 C is normal depending on your cooling setup, and all of those temps are safe.
As for what you should be looking for, make sure your mobo supports overclocking (a quick googling will tell you). If so, you're going to have to take a trip to the UEFI (the "new" BIOS) and mess around with some options there. Again, google how one overclocks on your mobo model. There are probably a lot of guides online. Again, there's no long term damage if you take into account heat, voltage, and system stability.
Under normal circumstances, your CPU could probably run 24/7 at full-blast for years (a decade?) before it'd even start to show signs of failure, and by that time, you'll obviously be in the market for a new machine anyway. If you buy a nice car man, you better drive it fast