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[UNIQUE] Which of these 3 (identical) CPUs would last longer?
- Thread starter pulverizor
- Start date
Stop splitting hairs!
Your #2 option is really not even possible. You cannot overclock "heavily" and undervolt. There is some headroom to overclock on stock voltage, and perhaps if undervolted a little, but a 'heavy' overclock, like that i5 760 to 4Ghz, there is no way in hell it could do that at stock voltage, none the less undervolted.
You really are making mountains from ant hills (smaller than mole hills..
). 
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You take that back, EE is super fun.Thank God I switched majors.
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Jah, keep it simple. Best post award.
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ok so this is a unique topic which (oddly) has never been addressed before in the history of overclocking - or even in the history of internet for that matter - so googling this up is useless, and it's safe to assume that very very few people in the world know the correct answer to this conundrum
so this is the question
suppose we have 3 new & perfectly identical CPUs (for argument's sake, suppose it's an intel 4-core CPU, if that makes a difference)
1- first CPU : stock settings (non-overclocked, non-overvolted), cooled by the standard crappy stock intel heatsink-fan, and has an average idle temperature of 55°C
2- second CPU : heavily overclocked (say by 50%), heavily overvolted, BUT also cooled by a state-of-the-art space-age cooling system so that despite the overclocking it has an average idle temperature of only 35°C
3- third CPU: under-clocked, under-volted, cooled by standard intel cooler, and has an average idle temperature of 35°C (so same temp as the #2 overclocked one: it's underclocked to compensate for the crappy cooling)
btw I mention idle temps but let's assume that there's the same differences in load temps (so CPU #2 & #3 have a -15°C lower average load temp than CPU #1)
question1: assuming they have the same total amount of activity & idle/load time,
which of these 3 CPUs will have a longer lifespan?
(or to reformulate: in which of these 2 CPUs will electro-migration occur first?)
question2: will CPU #2 & CPU #3 have the same lifespan?
PS. since this sort of problem has never been tackled before I reckon only an extremely highly qualified engineer/scientist would know the right answer to this, hoping some of them are on this forum, this question is addressed at them
btw I ask this in the intel section cause the general CPU section seems almost abandoned so unlikely many people will notice this topic
Going by my personal opinion, CPU#3 would last the longest as being under-clocked and under-volted would decrease its heat production overall and probably increase its effective lifespan (difficult to say by how much). It would be a tossup between #1 (stock speed, stock crappy cooler, higher temps) and #2 (heavy overclock, over-volted, but equipped with a better cooler and therefore lower average temps).
Really greatly depends upon exactly how much voltage the overclocked CPU was given. If it was given 1.3-1.4V then it's probably going to be fine for a long time, but if it was given 1.5v+ then it's lifespan would likely be greatly reduced. The questionable area is between 1.4v and 1.45v, kind of a gray area there for Intel, since the point at which a CPU is damaged by voltage on Air cooling varies on the different architectures.
It's worth considering though that most CPU's can last 15-20+ YEARS, which is usually far beyond the length of time that the average consumer will actually use them (let's say the average home consumer/user/owner uses the same CPU (assuming they don't upgrade it) for 3-5 years (maybe 7 years in extreme cases). So, the average CPU will be replaced with a new computer long before it is likely to actually die or otherwise stop working.
Really the CPU you are looking at buying is unlikely to be damaged unless the previous owner just gave it STUPID amounts of voltage for an extended period (say several years at 1.5v for instance).
I've been overclocking CPU's for about seven years now and I've overclocked probably a few dozen now (can't recall how many, at least one or two dozen though). I've only ever managed to damage (READ: KILL) one (I burned up the memory controller), short version is I was being an idiot and gave an AMD CPU 1.7v with air cooling.
I overclocked an i5 650 (dual-core CPU from same era) from the stock 3.2GHz up to 4.7GHz, and it still works great. I was on some very good air cooling at the time, idling at around 30°C with 1.376v. Think my load temp was around 60°C.
cool! so temperature is the only factor then
(others' posts freaked me out when they said that voltage is damaging even without heat so I'm glad to know this ain't true)
No, just no.
I killed a CPU with high voltage once and the temperatures were reasonable. You give it enough voltage and voltage alone WILL kill a CPU. You just normally have to give it quite a lot of voltage to kill it right away. You can still damage a CPU with high voltage though, even with reasonably low temperatures, usually without realizing it.
Voltage is likely more of a factor than temperature, though both are important.
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OP
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- Thread Starter
- #56
**** now I'm freaked out again
no idea how high that #$%$ overvolted it & he may even have forgotten for all I know
I only know he used water-cooling to maintain low temps but since you say this changes nothing to voltage damage then buying this cpu would be like drawing a lotery ticket :/
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- Dec 14, 2010
Well, I did say it requires quite a lot of voltage to actually do serious damage to a CPU.**** now I'm freaked out again
no idea how high that #$%$ overvolted it & he may even have forgotten for all I know
I only know he used water-cooling to maintain low temps but since you say this changes nothing to voltage damage then buying this cpu would be like drawing a lotery ticket :/
Maybe I should have said voltage alone COULD kill a CPU, rather than WILL.
Really, every time you buy any processor (new or used) it's like playing the lottery. It might overclock like mad at low voltages, or it might be a total dog and have a high VID (stock voltage) just to run at stock speed.
There's a pretty good chance of getting a good used one though, as I've bought nearly all of my processors used, and I've never had one arrive DOA yet.
Maybe you should just ask the seller what voltage they were running to the CPU. If he was running more than 1.4v for that overclock I would be very surprised.
Not really trying to freak you out. Actually I was trying to reassure you of how difficult it is to actually kill a CPU. I don't think it came out quite right though. Though I did want to emphasize the point that voltage is also an important factor when it comes to how a CPU can be damaged.
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- Joined
- Jan 14, 2011
1st generation icore (1156) have already outlasted there useful lives
I can't afford the latest (3rd? 4th?) generation icores or phenoms yet so I'm stuck with old 2nd hand stuff
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hey I know I'm not trying to defy entropy or something
guess I won't buy that 2nd hand cpu then, too suspicious chances are he ruined it too much with that crazy o/c despite the water cooling :/
(plus I'd have to test it with prime95 & memtest & what not, and these apps are designed to destroy CPUs lol)
ive been running my 2500k between 4.5 and 4.9 at 1.3-1.43v since release day its not much newer than 1156 at all.
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