Legit Reviews

There are many debates about this in regards to CPU life. I'm running my Opty 175 @ 1.525 which is 13% above stock. I figure if it lasts 2 years I'm ok with a shortened lifespan. Obviously, heat is a concern as well but I have mine under 47-49c at full load (dual Prime95's running) on air. Going to water SOON!

4400+ stock vcore 1.3v -> running 1.5v
I'd add more (upto 1.6v) if it would help but 2.6 - 2.65GHz is the max stable I can get

(I still have to find the lowest vcore needed for 2.6!)

H2O cooled ;)

kenc51 wrote:4400+ stock vcore 1.3v -> running 1.5v
I'd add more (upto 1.6v) if it would help but 2.6 - 2.65GHz is the max stable I can get

2655 is the best I've gotten stable on my opty 175 so I'm with you man. I think it may run on 1.515 volts but I haven't tested yet. I think 1.575 is the highest I'll prolly go.

Yeah, I'll go up to high 1.5xx volt range if I know my temps are good. I've gone over 1.6 but I wasn't comfortable with it.

So 11%-15% it is for me!

i will try to stay within 15%.. but if you have the right cooling, it should not matter what voltage you go up to. for sure ;)

EvilCloudStrife wrote:i will try to stay within 15%.. but if you have the right cooling, it should not matter what voltage you go up to. for sure ;)

I dare you to pump 2v into an AMD64 chip!!! Even @ -100C it will die!!!

EvilCloudStrife wrote:i will try to stay within 15%.. but if you have the right cooling, it should not matter what voltage you go up to. for sure ;)

Not true...voltages can and will kill or reduce the lifespan of your CPU regardless of heat. Something to do with electrons blah blah blah over my head.

EvilCloudStrife -> You brought up a good point (even if you didn't mean to!)

Extra voltages can and will reduce any components life!
Joe you already said it, but I think on this thread it's good to make this clear!!!

Here is a good link on the subject:
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthr ... t=electron

Also found on Overclock.net
"Electrons in one transistor are not supposed to be able to reach other transistors in normal circumstances, but according to the principle of quantum tunnelling, an electron can actually escape from an infinitely deep energy well; it just does not happen that often. A transistor is made up of positively and negatively doped silicon around un-doped silicon. Every now and again, through chance alone, an electron can tunnel away from the conductive silicon keeping it in place. Usually it will only burrow in a couple of atoms and then return, though sometimes it can travel into another adjacent transistor. This does not normally cause a problem, because you need a lot of stray electrons to cause an error in how the gate is read. The problems start to occur when an electron attaches itself to one of the silicon atoms in the un-doped section of the silicon, or knocks another electron out of its orbit. This is known as silicon degradation, and over time, usually measured in years, a path is formed by the damage caused by these tunnelling electrons between two gates. Electrons can then flow across the junction freely, causing it to malfunction, and the value be misread by the computer, resulting in an error.

The more energy an electron has, the more likely it is to tunnel, which is why if your CPU is running hot, or has a considerably higher voltage going through it, electrons can tunnel through far more easily. All CPU’s are built so that there is an inbuilt resistance to quantum tunnelling for an extended period of time, but when you overclock your CPU, that period is reduced.

If you overclock or over-volt the chip too much, you can actually physically destroy the silicon lattice of gates within a processor."