overclock /oh'vr-klok'/ vt.
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 crashes, 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 450MHz CPU at 500MHz, even though they can only
tell the difference by running a benchmark program.