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CPU lifespan after overclock?

C

Crowsnose

n00b
Joined
Dec 2, 2008
Messages
38
Hello, this is probably a very newbish question and I'm sorry if the answer lies within a sticky topic I overlooked but my question is to what extent will the lifespan of a CPU/mobo be affected if you're running a constant, stable overlock?

By stable I mean running under load with no errors and temperatures and voltages remaining in an ideal range. I get a lot of benefit from OCing my cpu but I'm also paranoid about it taking a few years off its lifespan... Is the difference insignificant or will even the most stable overclocks put enough strain on your components to make them fail sooner compared to stock settings?
 
I really wouldn't worry about it. A stable and reasonable OC should have just as long a life as one @ stock speeds. I have yet to have a processor die on me :)
 
The extra stress will probably drop the lifespan from like 20 years down to 15. If you're worried about having to replace your CPU in 2025 rather than 2030, you probably shouldn't overclock.
 
The two enemies to a CPU's life are heat and electromigration. As long as you're keeping voltage within specs and heat at a reasonable temperature, you won't be shortening the life of your CPU.
 
If you are within the silicons rated rated max voltage and temps remain good, it will last a long time, longer than you will keep that chip.
This assumes your PSU can easily handle the overclock, a bad, overloaded or dying PSU can cause its own damage/extra heat to anything connected.
 
InvisiBill said:
The extra stress will probably drop the lifespan from like 20 years down to 15. If you're worried about having to replace your CPU in 2025 rather than 2030, you probably shouldn't overclock.
Click to expand...

This made me lol. :D
 
ive had my athlon xp 1700+ overclocked to a 2000+ for a little over 7 years.. the processor has survived 4 motherboards during its time and has been running as a file server for the last 2 years in a closet..

so whether the effect of overclocking actually effects the life span.. i guess we wont really know til a normal unoverclocked 1700+ dies before or after my overclocked one.. which comes down to the question.. how long do you actually plan to use your cpu? if my old arse athlon xp's survived 7 years and the avg time people changes cpu's is 2-5 years.. you most likely will never find out if overclocking it actually effected its life span.. well unless you throw 2v at it trying to break world record overclock..
 
I go through computer parts so fast I don't have time to see if my OCing them kills them prematurely,

I wouldn't worry about it.
 
I had my e6400 overclocked to 3.2ghz (2.13ghz standard) from day one and it lasted me over 3 years without a hiccup.
I only just replaced it with an e7500 and im putting my old CPU in a friends new system and im confident it will last at least another 3 years. Temperatures never went over 60 degrees and i always kept it within the specified voltage range.

Proof enough to me that if you do it right, overclocking will not greatly reduce a chips lifetime. Yet i have ignorant friends who refuse to run their core 2 duos at any higher than stock because they're scared that overclocking will kill their cpus, even without upping the voltage.

I see their e6300s etc chugging along at 1.87ghz, bottlenecking their gpus and struggling to keep up with the system and i just think what a waste of all that untapped potential. You just cant tell some people :p

Then theres the friends that Intel love having as customers..the ones who buy the highest clocked standard cpus.. then i laugh at them when i buy a chip that costs less than theirs and run it way faster too ( the only reason i bought an e7500 instead of an e7200 is because it was the cheapest of all the e7x00s)
 
Karndog said:
I had my e6400 overclocked to 3.2ghz (2.13ghz standard) from day one and it lasted me over 3 years without a hiccup.
I only just replaced it with an e7500 and im putting my old CPU in a friends new system and im confident it will last at least another 3 years. Temperatures never went over 60 degrees and i always kept it within the specified voltage range.

Proof enough to me that if you do it right, overclocking will not greatly reduce a chips lifetime. Yet i have ignorant friends who refuse to run their core 2 duos at any higher than stock because they're scared that overclocking will kill their cpus, even without upping the voltage.

I see their e6300s etc chugging along at 1.87ghz, bottlenecking their gpus and struggling to keep up with the system and i just think what a waste of all that untapped potential. You just cant tell some people :p

Then theres the friends that Intel love having as customers..the ones who buy the highest clocked standard cpus.. then i laugh at them when i buy a chip that costs less than theirs and run it way faster too ( the only reason i bought an e7500 instead of an e7200 is because it was the cheapest of all the e7x00s)
Click to expand...

Overclocking the lowest end chip in a series isn't always going to get you the results you want. For example, the E6300 had a multiplier of 7. Most boards at the time were lucky to hit 450 FSB (although a few did reach 500+), in which case you would only get 3.1GHz from that chip. A bump to an 8x multiplied CPU (E6400 for example) would get you 3.6-4.0GHz. A 9x lets you keep your FSB at 400 so you're not pushing that cheap DDR2-800 ram you bought. :p
 
ryan_975 said:
Overclocking the lowest end chip in a series isn't always going to get you the results you want. For example, the E6300 had a multiplier of 7. Most boards at the time were lucky to hit 450 FSB (although a few did reach 500+), in which case you would only get 3.1GHz from that chip. A bump to an 8x multiplied CPU (E6400 for example) would get you 3.6-4.0GHz. A 9x lets you keep your FSB at 400 so you're not pushing that cheap DDR2-800 ram you bought. :p
Click to expand...

Very true. It all depends on a combination of CPU multiplier, motherboard FSB, and RAM frequency. The biggest bottleneck on my E6750 was the 8x multiplier, as a result of which I would at most get 3.2GHz (400MHz x 8) with my DDR2 800 RAM. I'm not even sure my ABIT IP35-E could have done 450+ FSB.
 
In my experience, the motherboard will go sooner than the CPU due to overclocking. It seems like performance will degrade (have to lower the overclock) over time.
 
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