overclock

To operate a CPU or other digital logic device at a rate higher than it was designed for, under the assumption that the manufacturer put some {slop} into the specification to account for manufacturing tolerances. Overclocking something can result in intermittent {crash}es, and can even burn things out, since power dissipation is directly proportional to {clock} frequency. People who make a hobby of this are sometimes called "overclockers"; they are thrilled that they can run their CPU a few percent faster, even though they can only tell the difference by running a {benchmark} program. See also {case mod}.

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