Intel’s XScale and TI OMAP processors have spawned a
cottage industry in “overclocking” software. Their
CPUs are designed to be able to run at more than one
speed. The benefit is that CPU speed can be scaled
to the task at hand: higher speeds for
graphics-intensive or multimedia applications, lower
speeds for spreadsheets and word-processing.
Overclocking software overrides the built-in
governors on the speed, pushing the processor to the
max at all times. In theory, this won’t hurt
anything, but manufacturers are warning that it may
in some cases. Overclocking can also void your
warranty.
For a second opinion, we went to Mack Baggette of
PocketPCTechs.com. He said “My
basic take on overclocking is to give the option to
the users and let them decide, knowing the possible
risks involved. In overclocking a handheld unit,
there is almost no risk of physically damaging the
unit. The extra power consumption doesn’t come close
to the power consumption of things like the screen,
backlight, memory chips, etc. In regards to the
heat, it is negligible as there is much more heat
generated from the power circuits for things such as
charging and backlighting than anything else. The
worst thing that can happen is that you will have to
hard reset your unit and lose all your data and
programs. If you are playing with overclocking, just
make sure you have good backups.”
A number of applications allow you to overclock the
CPU. Check out
XCPUScalar or Google “Windows Mobile overclock” for other
links. Finally, Samsung CPUs should not be
overlooked.
