Well, whether it is worth it or not is up to one's own view on things. It's similar to tuning the engine of a car.
One thing you do by overclocking is voiding your warranty. While this may not be a problem in general, it could be. In case a part fails, it's up to the manufacturer to either replace it for something YOU did wrong or play high and mighty and refuse to RMA. The parts I have killed by being daft are all still in my possession. Some are quite expensive trophies of a hobby gone bad or a brainfart at the time (note the use of "some" - more than one, yes). To me it is something of a sport - see what you can get out of something - without killing it. The parts I have fried have all been killed by yours truly being stupid and / or not thinking - static electricity cost me one 9600tx gfx card, improper cooling after returning from a run on compressor cooling (CPU & GPU) cost me a 9800xt. In that particular instance I went from having edited the bios of my GFX card to significantly higher speeds cooled at -40°C via compressor to a passive aircoolled heatsink. I simply forgot to reduce the clocks and voltages - it didn't take more than 30 seconds to die. Chalk that one up to experience. The strangest, and sadly most expensive, blunder is still unexplicable to me - an Intel Dothan M780ES died within 6hours of my getting it - at the time that was about $800 gone to the shitter. I still can't figure out what happened.
Anyway, as for the uses of overclocking - my previous rig had a special processor and a few other gimmicks and in the end I ended up running it at stock speeds since I didn't need the extra power - full well knowing that I could increase the speeds by 50% with ease if I wanted or needed to. So for me nowadays overclocking is mostly just trying to see the maximum speed and performance I can get out of my parts and then reducing the performance to a level I need (which usually is above stock level), however, I try to reduce the voltages needed by the parts to below stock. Why am I waisting potential performance like that? Well for one, very few applications ever fully used my last rig and only one has managed to be below my goal on this one (Crysis 3 had fps dip below 60fps quite a few times) so I don't really need the power (see above). And then there is the inherent problem with overclocking - If you do it properly and go for the top, you will need to increase the voltage applied to the parts to achieve the higher clock speeds. More juice = more chance for electromigration (
http://en.wikipedia....lectromigration), put simply an internal corrosion of sorts of your circuitry. Applying more juice to get higher speeds also increases the TDP (thermal design power) - thus increasing the heat output of your puts, so you need better cooling. For the most part better cooling implies more noise - unless you go watercooling, which is what I am and have been doing for a few years now - but that's a considerable amount of dosh to the bill if you want to keep cool and quiet and yet still be fast.
I have been overclocking my kit for the better part of 10 years now and at times I went all out on it - as I said, I had two compressor cooling systems keeping my rig cooled properly (quiet noisy and adding up to 600 or so watts of additional power requirements) - while speeds where significantly higher, noise and heat in my room became an issue - plus of course the power bill. It was fun while it lasted - I managed to join the 100% club - which is to say overclock your cpu to double the speed is was shipped with (or more). Nowadays I have only overclocked my CPU, mildly I should say. In case I need more, I'll just up the speeds by 2-300 mhz and see if that will do - knowing that I could go another 5-600 more if i actually needed it.
As said, it's a sport, pointless for the most part, but fun. Yes, you can gain some performance, but do you really need it, I mean on a daily basis? I can only speak for myself and say "No!". But it's nice to know I could if I wanted to. Much like driving a 500bhp sedan/coupe - you could blitz everyone on the road if you wanted to, but you don't need to - until one fine Sunday morning you go out for a drive at dawn to enjoy the rush without the other morons on the road to just enjoy the feeling ...
OH wee, philosophical

/edit. typo in the last word, grrr (probably a bunch of others, too)
Edited by sky, Aug 26 2013 - 01:34 PM.