VCore: How much is too much?

[Number_Eight]

Long time reader, first time poster, blah blah.

Now that that's out of the way, I just got my watercooled system all set up and I want to push my processor as hard as I (safely) can. So here's what I have and what I can do:

I'm running an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, rated for 1.8 GHz at 133 FSB

Currently I'm running stably at 182 x 11.5 = 2093MHz at 39C under load. The only problem is I need to set my BIOS to 1.8V to get this stable, *and* I'm actually reading 1.84V going to the processor using ASUS Utility. So that's a pretty significant increase.

Previously I had it set at 177 x 11.5 = 2035MHz, VCore = 1.75 (reads 1.8). This ran at 37-38C under load.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is 39C ain't all that hot. It's tempting to up the FSB more (I haven't tested if it can go higher at this VCore yet), and increase the voltage until the core gets too hot. For some reason, common sense is beating me over the head telling me no matter how hot it is, too much voltage will kill the CPU. Is it possible to actually fry it by giving it too much voltage, even if the temperature reads low? What's considered a safe or smart voltage to stop at?

 

[heero884]

Long time reader, first time poster, blah blah.

Now that that's out of the way, I just got my watercooled system all set up and I want to push my processor as hard as I (safely) can. So here's what I have and what I can do:

I'm running an AMD Athlon XP 2200+, rated for 1.8 GHz at 133 FSB

Currently I'm running stably at 182 x 11.5 = 2093MHz at 39C under load. The only problem is I need to set my BIOS to 1.8V to get this stable, *and* I'm actually reading 1.84V going to the processor using ASUS Utility. So that's a pretty significant increase.

Previously I had it set at 177 x 11.5 = 2035MHz, VCore = 1.75 (reads 1.8). This ran at 37-38C under load.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is 39C ain't all that hot. It's tempting to up the FSB more (I haven't tested if it can go higher at this VCore yet), and increase the voltage until the core gets too hot. For some reason, common sense is beating me over the head telling me no matter how hot it is, too much voltage will kill the CPU. Is it possible to actually fry it by giving it too much voltage, even if the temperature reads low? What's considered a safe or smart voltage to stop at?

it is possible to fry a processor by giving it too much voltage regardless of temp. there are people that believe that high voltage and/or high temps will shorten the life span of the processor but i havent found a article with concrete data on how much voltage is too much and how much the life span will be shortened by. assuming you do shorten the life span of the processor, the processor will most likely become outdated before it dies (assuming you dont use too extreme of vcore) so its up to you if you want to take a chance with raising the voltage to "high" levels. 1.85volts would be the highest i would use but its not uncommon to see people running 2+ volts but usually these people will not be running these settings for a extended amount of time. at higher voltages you may start seeing voltage fluctuations and when the voltage dips too low it causes instabilities in which case youll have to raise the voltage so that the voltage doesnt dip too low. but the problem with this is the voltage can fluctuate too much and kill your processor. adding mofset heatsinks will help with power flux from my experience and is worth buying.

btw is there a reason why youre not running the fsb at 200? from the info you gave it seems your cpu is unlocked.