Burning in? What is it, how does it work, is it worth it?

Hey

I have heard many people talk about this burning in thing, what exactly is it? What is it meant to do, is it usefull?

To my knowledge I think it is like running ur CPU at high volts for the first few weeks u have it to somehow increase its performance, or something slong those lines?

Thanks

It's the opposite actually. Running your CPU as fast as it can go while trying to stay at stock volts. This topic has a good guide on burning in, and despite the name of the topic, doesn't just apply to Opterons.

Burning in is still full of myths. There are many theories to how/why/if it works. One way people burn in is to run at an elevated voltage at stock speeds, or at least back in the p3/p2 generation it was that way. One myth is it physically burns off part of the process reducing a say 0.18 μm to 0.17 μm. Some say it helps, some say it doesn't. It's really up to you to do it and draw your own conclusions.

I'm just starting to get into physical construction of chips in my classes so I can't say anything to back up either side. I doubt even undergrad classes go into details relating to this, so I may never know the answer.