Overclocking and CPU lifespan

[ForceCalibur]

Does overclocking a CPU reduce it's life span significantly?

 

[Confused]

Will it reduce a CPU's lifetime. Probably.

Will you still have the CPU (and still care about it) when it dies. Probably not.

Unless you're doing EXTREME overclocking, where you will kill the chip in the matter of a couple of months, then I doubt you will see any difference in the chip. I know some people who still have Celeron 300A's running @ 550MHz, on running 100% 24/7 since they came out.



Confused

 

[txxxx]

Only excessively will do so. I have a T-bred running at 1.78v , 2.17ghz (standard 13x166 ~).

A year and a bit later, its still running. So I can safely say from my experience, 1.65v to 1.78v wont cause a CPU to die within months. This only applies for Athlon XPs.

 

[ragiepew]

well put Confused... I keep telling people that when they are worried about OCing affecting the life of a CPU... how many people keep their computer, with the same CPU, long enough to see the end of the life for a chip... i'd venture to say < 1%.

 

[chocoruacal]

Originally posted by: Confused

Will you still have the CPU (and still care about it) when it dies. Probably not.

Confused nailed it. Its a moot point 'cause unless you do something outside of the normal course of overclocking that results in a fried chip, you'll never keep the chip long enough to bother worrying about the affect on its life-span. Even if you cut it in half, and it went from say 10 years to 5 years...after those 5 years replacing the chip would probably cost you less than a ticket to the movies.

 

[ForceCalibur]

alritey thx guys.

I just bought a nice system from karaktu (joe), a real sweet cheap mobile celeron 1.5 oced to 3.2 gigahertz.

 

[exar333]

Thats a pretty nice OC for a mobile Celery! Glad ya like it

 

[caz67]

Ive had my old 3.06B running at 3.45 160FSB, at 1.65Vcore, for 12 mths with no issues .

 

[JohnPaul]

The only thing that can have an impact on CPU lifespan is high voltage. As long as you are not raising it to extremely high levels, you are not likely to reduce the lifespan of the CPU by much, if at all. All you are doing is raising the clock speed as high as it will go and run stable. The only reason the manufacturers of CPUs do not do so is that they want a little breathing room as far as being certain that it will run at the speed they rate it at. If it runs stable at a certain speed, there is no reason to think you are shortening its lifespan. I mean, some chips overclock well, while others do not. Some chips should have been rated at a higher clockspeed in the first place, but end up being downclocked due to a high demand for the lower speed chips. Those are the ones you want to look for to overclock, since they are cheap and can run comfortably at a higher clockspeed, and usually with little or no voltage adjustment. The XP1700+ was a prime example of a chip rated at a far lower speed than it is capable of running due to the demand for it.

 

[Dman877]

The only commonly-occuring chip deaths in recent memory were those 1.6/1.8 p4's that people had running at 2.6 - 2.8 ghz on 1.7+ volts (I think). Lotta stories about those chips dying from the extra voltage.

 

[0roo0roo]

http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?s=5d40307d2a6885d1e0dd3c5f6ee7f92a&amp;threadid=187887&amp;perpage=30&amp;highlight=air%20results&amp;pagenumber=19

 

[bob4432]

Originally posted by: JohnPaul
The only thing that can have an impact on CPU lifespan is high voltage. As long as you are not raising it to extremely high levels, you are not likely to reduce the lifespan of the CPU by much, if at all. All you are doing is raising the clock speed as high as it will go and run stable. The only reason the manufacturers of CPUs do not do so is that they want a little breathing room as far as being certain that it will run at the speed they rate it at. If it runs stable at a certain speed, there is no reason to think you are shortening its lifespan. I mean, some chips overclock well, while others do not. Some chips should have been rated at a higher clockspeed in the first place, but end up being downclocked due to a high demand for the lower speed chips. Those are the ones you want to look for to overclock, since they are cheap and can run comfortably at a higher clockspeed, and usually with little or no voltage adjustment. The XP1700+ was a prime example of a chip rated at a far lower speed than it is capable of running due to the demand for it.

so if you can o/c without upping the V you shouldn't have any ill effects on the processor? i can run my 2.8c @ 3.1 @ stock voltage with no temp increase

 

[Corporate Thug]

the cpu will be long outdated before the OC wears away from the expectancy