Repeated stress testing with Prime95 decrease CPU/system life?

Since the point of running Prime95 is to simulate the worst conditions the system will face (often times for 12-24 hours of constant abuse to be deemed "stable"), does this not decrease the life of the CPU/system in a tangible way? I'm just curious here as to how much damage is incurred vs. the intelligence gained as to what the system can handle.

If this his already been asked/questioned, please just point me to the thread and I'll gladly shut up.

Using the same concept:

Running the computer also stresses it, should we just turn it off?



You just want to stress it in, as you said, 'worst possible conditions'. Does this reduce the life of the processor, yeah probably. In the time it takes the hardware to degrade, do you think you would have moved onto another computer?

Hardware failure is pretty "random", I've had new hardware fail very quickly (couple months) and I have hardware that is really old that still runs (pentium 2 slot 1).

That's more of an argument of use vs. abuse. Prime95 is abuse, albeit controlled. Whereas using a computer is a much more tame, useful, and intended method. I suppose the same goes for a car. The harder you drive it, the shorter it lasts. That's not to say it can't handle the abuse, but it certainly does affect its longevity. I'm just trying to get a grasp on what effect Prime95 has on the longevity.

For some people, prime95-like use is completely normal. These people are the super multitaskers/encoders: for example, right now I have 10 firefox windows, 2 adobe photoshop windows (running a macro), winamp, warcraft 3, teamfortress2 and several other programs running. Of course, it's not always like this, but idealistically, the computer is built to run at 100% all the time, versus a car which isn't (hence time warranties versus mileage warranties).

Basically, no noticeable effect.

FliGi7 said:

I'm just trying to get a grasp on what effect Prime95 has on the longevity.

Click to expand...

Basically what I was trying to say is that you will not harm it enough for you to notice. There is no way to test if it "harms" the processor since no two are alike.

Gotcha. Thanks for the replies, guys.

I have to agree most with thideras, in that, it probably hurts it, but the amount it hurts is probably negligable considering the built in "fail time" of your certain piece of hardware, which is essentially completely random.