I really don't think so. Many people talk about overclocking their CPUs, but when I watch the monitor for mine, I see the clock speed changing constantly. I don't know what causes this, but the temperature is not the reason, as it is staying below 30 Deg. C.

Intel cpus use a technology that allow the processor speed to dynamically adapt to the workload, that is likely why you see it move around. This is designed as a power saving feature.

Overclocking Can and will provide a significant performance boost none the less. It will raise the max speed.  It does depend on the processor used though, some are bad overclockers, some are good.  I had a 30% speed boost on my last machine due to overclocking.

Another point about overclocking, I have learned that at least some CPU manufacturers (one in particular, Intel) have also put into their circuitry protection against overheating. It reduces clock speed if a certain temperature is reached, usually about 80% of TjMax.

Emm, my laptop is nearly five years old, Intel T4300, 3GB ram, Windows 7.1 64 bit, Directx 11. I will try the alpha on it but even my wife is pushing me to buy a new one.

Ah yes. The Pentium dual core. And at the time, quite fast at 800 Mhz. Certainly it is a bit late to get a new one before the Alpha ships, but since your wife wants a new one anyway, ....

But I think you are going to have a real bottleneck with page swapping with GC3, since you only have 3GB ram.

Lets see: 

Windows 8.1 Pro

Intel 3770K @ 3.5Ghz

Nvidia 680 SLI 2GB of VRAM each

16GB RAM 

250GB SSD 

500GB HDD 

1TB HDD 

Built it back in December:

CPU - Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core
CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid
Motherboard - Asus Maximus VI Hero ATX LGA1150
Memory - G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866
SSD - Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" SSD
HDD - Western Digital BLACK SERIES 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM
Video Card - 2 X EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Superclocked 3GB
Case - Cooler Master HAF X Blue ATX Full Tower
Power Supply - Corsair 1050W ATX12V / EPS12V
Sound Card - Creative Labs Sound Blaster Zx

OS - Windows 8.1 Pro

Some people just like to go All-In when they build a new machine

Desktop PC

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 3.40 GHz

8GB RAM

DirectX 11

NVIDIA GeForce 460 GTX

1680 x 1050 

500 GB HDD WD + 2 TB HDD WD

Go big or go home   Actually scored some killer deals on prices for some of the parts working the black Friday & cyber Monday deals.

Just finished this computer like...a few weeks back. Technically, I use this computer not just for gaming, but also for video processing and some mathematical processing stuff (I have a lot of hobbies).

OS: Windows 8 64-bit

CPU: Intel i7 4960X 4.2 GHz

CPU Cooler: Corsair H100

Motherboard: Asus Rampage IV

Memory: Corsair 1600 Mhz 64 GB (8 x 8 GB)

Hard Drives: 2 2 TB Western Digital + 1 3 TB Western Digital

SSD: Samsung 840 Pro 512 GB + Samsung 840 Evo 1 TB

Video Card: 3 x GTX Titan 6 GB

Power Supply: 1500W Enermax Platimax (don't remember for sure what the model number is)

Case: Thermaltake (don't remember exact model since it's from my last year's computer)

Monitor: Dell U-2713HM or Asus VG278H (Dell for application use, Asus for gaming)

DAC: Lynx Hilo

Speakers: Audioengine A5+ and S8 Subwoofer

There are some nice specs out there (I am Jealous), nothing so fancy for me.

Windows 7 Pro

MSI P55 CD53 MOBO

I5 750 2.6ghz CPU, thermaltake frio cooler (ready for overclocking waiting for better RAM first)

4GB 1333mhz RAM (got 16GB 1866mhz on order)

AMD HD7870 2GB GPU

WD blue 500GB HDD primary WD green 3TB + Samsung F3 1TB storage (SSD planned later)

XFX 650W modular PSU

In a Fractual Design XL case

I bow to thee,  Titan King.

I mean shiz, how much HDD and SDD space do you need (and RAM by the way)?

You also now hold the title for best PC on this thread (and probably top 5% out there). Here's to the PC master race

Where did you get this laptop? Is it a touchscreen? Touchscreens are a must for windows 8. I would also like to know your graphics card but if the laptop is relatively new, I would guess it supports Dx 11.

RAM was pretty much overkill for sure. That being said, RAM is pretty cheap, so I don't think it matters that much whether I had 32 GB (which was the package deal with my motherboard) or 64 GB.

As for HDD/SSD, believe me. If you're doing video processing like I am, that amount of space is not nearly enough.

What sorta bothers me is that I know that NVidia is making new Titan cards later this year that's going to make the whole system VERY obsolete (Google Nvidia Titan Z to see). The price of keeping up with the latest I suppose.

So I posted earlier... but my computer motherboard popped a FF code and failed to post on the day the Alpha was released! Thursday morning March 27th lol. After testing chips it is truly dead (it  was almost going to turn 6 years told anyways). the good news is I have upgraded my PC to something more modern than a Core Duo 3.16 ghz processor and SATAII Velociraptor hard drive. Here's the new specs:

Intel i7 4820K 3.7 Ghz (stock) 10mb Cache processor

Asus X79 Sabertooth (with the new bios updates)

16 GB Ram

250 GB Samsung Solid State Drive (SataIII)

My old 300 GB Velociraptor HD (SataII)

My oldish EVGA Geforce GTX470

Some sort of old dvd player/writer that works just find, but doesn't really get used : p

Hope it kicks some processing butt when full game is released