Long-term consequences of a succesful overclock?

[kskerns]

Dated 03/02/2011

Good afternoon. I'm investing in a new system soon and intend to OC the 2600k a bit because hey, why not. I've read the sticky and done a little digging and am somewhat familiarized with method/risks/possible speeds. What I'm really asking is:

Given good cooling
Given stable OC
Given quality components

What are the long-term consequences of a modest overclock (Say, pushing 3.4ghz to 4.0ghz)? Given all of the above, would we still expect a reduction in component lifespan? Put another way, if 3.4 is so low for this particular chip, why didn't Intel include a nicer cooler and flaunt a higher stock clockspeed?

My current searches have mostly picked up questions and answers from years ago, and the hardware landscape has certainly changed since then. Thoughts?

 

[simon12]

Any increase in the voltage or temperature will lower the life span but its useful lifespan is far lower than its potential full lifespan. "why didn't Intel include a nicer cooler and flaunt a higher stock clockspeed?" various reasons they could have done this on every processor since before the original pentium. 1 reason is they cvan bring out a higher clock speed later and charge more for it 1 is that intel have to make sure 100% of all chips they make are 100% stable all the time not just the 99% that can be overclocked well. A lesser reason is the better cooler increases the price and makes them look less competitive. You could also ask the same questions about an AMD CPU and the answer would be the same.

 

[kskerns]

That's what I figured. Tom's Hardware 2600k article gave voltages that seemed well within operating limits for the lower end OCs.

I have just not seen any resources that go so far as to suggest how long estimated lifespan is under different heats/voltages - if high achievers that push for 5ghz expect to see only a couple years out of it (but they don't care because they'll be upgrading by then) or if modest OCs will limit my ability to relegate said machine to "decent secondary/hand-me-down" status.

Thanks for confirming my suspicions!

 

[mrface]

Reduced longevity of hardware will be most likely the outcome.

However, with the Moore's curve of 18 months, I dont think that it would fall into that spectrum. By the time its usefulness has passed you will probably have already upgraded your hardware.

Good Luck OCing.

 

[4Ryan6]

Given good cooling
Given stable OC
Given quality components

What are the long-term consequences of a modest overclock (Say, pushing 3.4ghz to 4.0ghz)? Given all of the above, would we still expect a reduction in component lifespan?

Every overclocker knows his overclocking is shortening the lifespan, those are acceptable losses for us, because most of us will end up upgrading before any damage ever occurs.

Not to avoid paying the overclocking price, but because technology is changing so fast, what's killer today, is almost obsolete a year from now, we're living in a marvelous technological time, very exciting times, big changes from the days we were excited over a 20mhz increase.

We're in a time that AMD and now Intel have released reasonably priced unlocked CPUs, that all the consumer has to do is educate themselves on how to get that performance to use it for themselves.

Now to answer your question:

4.0ghz is child's play to the 2600K, you may be able to run that with Vcore (CPU Supplied Voltage) on auto.

As to the long-term consequences of that overclock, there is not one person here at THGF that can give you a solid definite time of the longevity of overclocking that small of an amount, you may or may not ever have a problem.

Realistically if I were you, my goal would be at least a 1G overclock to 4.4ghz, but I'm not you!

Good luck in your endeavors! And Have a great Day! Ryan

 

[jsc]

Keep within the recommended voltage and thermal limits and, short of a random failure, your system will be obsolete long before it fails from the effects of overclocking.