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Overclocking minimizes Lifetime

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The simple answer? Yes/Mabey.

The long answer? Not really :) What DOES decrease the lifespan of a CPU is heat and voltage. Having aditional of either will decrease it some. Overclockers tend to push more voltage through their chips for higher speeds, but then also cool the CPU much better. In the end, it all comes out probably near a wash.

Also, CPUs have such long lifespans anyway that shaving off a little bit of it's life won't hurt. Think about it, there are still Apple IIs that work (from the late 1970s), 8088s that still work (very late 1970s), and Commodore 64s that still work (early 1980s). Trust me when I say that a CPU will FAR outlast it's use :)

JigPu
 
As long as your not stupid about it. Like if you leave your voltage at 1.7+ vcore with air cooling for a intel C series, your probably not going to have that for long. And if your temps are amazingly high, you might not have that for long. But if your a smart overclocker, none of these things will happen anyways.
 
I've had a PIII 500 clocked up to 850 going on 6 years, runs every day doing seti. volted as high as my old MB will go. No worries! Now my new rig OTOH is at 2600mhz at 2V so we'll see how that goes.
 
Neocron said:


you're really a oc noob :p


I'm too noob to die!

*throws hands in air and runs off screaming*

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
tom10167 said:

And has it really been proven that high voltage, when properly cooled lowers a cpus lifespan?

There is no doubt it does. But consider this: I have a motherboard box in my spare room full of working, but obsolete, cpus. 486sx's, dx's, dx2's, dx4's, K5's, K6's, Pentiums, Pentium MMX's, P2's, celerons, both slot and S370. Need a working Cyrix dx2-66? No problem...

The point is this: other than the somewhat interesting moment when you show the collection and wisper in the amazed witness's ear, "and they all still work!", the fact that they work means nothing. Use up the lifespan, if you can. What is left goes to waste anyway.

BTW-every single cpu I've overclocked (hundreds) is still working, no matter how hard I abused them. I even run the 1.7v+ air cooled P4 referenced above :D
 
Cool input Larva... That's a really good testament to the durability of CPU's. I think the fear involved with losing a chip tends to overestimate the possibility of it happening sometimes.
 
I would agree, yes it does shorted the lifetime but not by much, and cpus as many people have pointed out live for a long time and as long as you are not going to be kepping it for 20+years working every day then i see no reason to owrry. Most overclockers change their cpu often too. I do say that it is uncommon which it is bnut there is still SNDS (Sudden Northwood Death Syndrome) which can and might affect any Intel Northwood P4, that is runnig over 1.75v and is hotter than -12C (Intel have said that if your cpu is runnig under 1.75 then your cpu is safe from snds.
 
Overclocking minimizes Lifetime, its.... not as bad as it sounds, by the time its lifetime ends, it'll be like comparing a calculator, to an Itanium2 at 1.7Ghz :p
 
Overclocking a cpu results in a minimal amount of wear and tear to a CPU, unless of course you're an idiot running 3V into your CPU going mad with voltage. Anyways it's not like your current CPU will be valuable by the time it burns out, it'll be worth $2 I bet. With all this said and all the previous posts read as well, GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND OC! La La La La!!

O yeah, don't scrape the die off your CPU also :D
 
To answer this question one needs to understand the basic structure of CPU's - > PNP and NPN FETS and transistors.

The following the straight out from the textbook...

...another breakdown effect that occurs at lower voltages (about 20V) in modern devices is called punch-through. It occurs in devices iwth relatively short channels when the drain voltage is increased to the point that the depletion region surrounding the drain region extend through the channel to the source. The drain current then increases rapidly. Normally, punch through does not result in permanent damage to the device.

Yet another kind of breakdown occurs when the gate-to-source voltage exceeds about 50V. this is the breakdown of the gate oxide and results in permanent damage to the device.

----
In other word, it's possible to cause breakdown in these basic CPU structures but quite unlikely. :p
 
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