Now the clock sets the pace for the processor and the memory bus. All other things kept equal, increasing the clock speed will increase the number of instructions executed per second All other things kept equal, increasing the clock speed will increase the number of instructions executed per second, thus the computer gets things done faster. Most motherboards allow us to adjust the clock speed - let's take our 486 as an example. Many 486 motherboards have a jumper that let you switch between 33 and 40 MHz. When setting the clock to a speed higher than the CPU is rated for, you are overclocking .
Some processors are easily overclocked, others are more touchy.
Clock Multipliers Life isn't so easy anymore. As computers became faster, bus speed began to top off. However, inside the small confines of the CPU, much higher speeds are obtainable. Since older CPUs required a number of clock cycles to execute a single instruction, the engineers developed clock multiplication. This first showed up on the 486.