Overclock decreases lifespan?

[Thread_Necro]

My friend and I are in a heated debate about overclocking, its risks and its problems.

He is so firmly set on believing that overclocking reduces lifespan of parts drastically.

Now i say, i had a athlon2500+ overclocked to athlon3200+ speeds and it bummed out after awhile i believe. My friend is running the same processor, motherboard and ram for months before i was and his hasnt died.

What do you say, luck of the draw?

What amount of overclocking is really destructive? if you oc by say .2ghz, it wouldnt affect your processors life as much as .6ghz would it?

[JLK03F150]

Voltage and heat decrease the life of components. IMO if you can overclock on stock vcore with good cooling then the life of the cpu shouldn't be affected. If you raise the voltage then the life will be shortened, but unless you over do it the cpu should still operate past its useful life.

[extreme_gamer]

I have no idea but I believe that as long as you have decent cooling and dont radically OC more than a few hundred MHz (in terms of the CPU), you should be alright. If you increase the voltage, that could be dangerous.

[rabidaardvark]

Haven't had a CPU die of old age yet, though I've only been using computers for 22 years.

[SoloCamo]

lol rabid!

Like JLK posted, it all factors down to how you are overclocking it.

Cooling and volts play a major role.
For example, I am running a 2.8E p4 @ 3.0ghz on stock volts and my cpu's life will not truly be affected.

[SpaceSquad]

Yep, like others have said, just don't go crazy.

A celeron 500MHz at 5Ghz won't last too long (yes, it has been done).

[Thread_Necro]

thanks guys, now i can tell em to stuff it about running stock speeds.

[SoloCamo]

But keep in mind, he will probably fight you to the death about the topic.

Just keep reminding him that not all overclocks are the same and some affect a lot on lifespan, and some don't have any affect at all.

[extreme_gamer]

And remember, AMD OC's better! =)

[wera]

Yep, like others have said, just don't go crazy.

A celeron 500MHz at 5Ghz won't last too long (yes, it has been done).

any videos? i would like to see that not saying i dun belive you bt i still wanna seez tat.

[SoloCamo]

actually that wouldn't be 100% true. Depends on the cpu, the p4 2.4C was one hell of an oc'er
Either way overclocking an AMD will still yield more performance when comparing mhz vs mhz

[SpaceSquad]

any videos? i would like to see that not saying i dun belive you bt i still wanna seez tat.

ha, I wish I had some vids. I remember seeing a 1GHz coppermine OC'ed to like 6GHz once...liquid nitogen cooled, of course.

I saw taht on anandtech's list of "best overlclocking processors"..or something like that.

[SpaceSquad]

And remember, AMD OC's better! =)

naw, depends completely on the chips.

[lhsonic]

A CPU has a lonnnggg life expantancy. About maybe 10 years. Overclock and you'll certainy kill its longetivity by a few years, but will you notice it becasue a CPU normally needs to be upgraded every 2-4 years.

[rabidaardvark]

Yeah even newer cellys overclock like champs.
too bad they still suck oc'd

But if I was just going for sheer OC I'd probably go Celeron.

[SoloCamo]

A CPU has a lonnnggg life expantancy. About maybe 10 years. Overclock and you'll certainy kill its longetivity by a few years, but will you notice it becasue a CPU normally needs to be upgraded every 2-4 years.

again, it all boils down to how much you overclock it.

[ShuckyD]

what do you think i could OC a 466mhz celeron too.... given a good enough fan and PSU with a decent board?

[rabidaardvark]

what do you think i could OC a 466mhz celeron too.... given a good enough fan and PSU with a decent board?

666 would be the perfect overclock, even if you could go higher.

[ArcticFox]

Just my $0.02, the only thing I've fried from overclocking was a Ti 4200 - which was RMA'd and appeared to have had it's capacitors replaced. My XP 2500+ ran it's entire life at 2.2Ghz, my P4 3.06Ghz was at 3.22Ghz for awhile but I backed down because it was stupid to have such a low OC, and now my 3000+ Venice has gone from 1.8Ghz to 2.34Ghz with a stock AMD cooler and hasn't reached it's limits yet.

I also have my Corsair Value DDR400 running under 400Mhz with a .2v jolt without issues (it wouldn't work right unless I boosted the power going to it anyways).

[ShuckyD]

just a question, why do you consider 666 to be the perfect OC? is it just because its 200mhz more or what?