Overclocking and Component Life span

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On Average, how much time does overclocking take off the lifespan of a product? say if a E6600 was going to live for 20 years at stock, how long would it live for with slightly increased voltage and increased clock speed? are we talking weeks less or years less?
 
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SiriusB said:
Even if it did affect lifespan there is a very good chance you would be 2 or 3 CPUs down the line by the time it would have clapped out :p


Probably more. I've gone through 7 CPU's and my trusty P3 500mhz is still going strong (one of the first P3s apparently) and that was heavily overclocked for a fair few years (now a server)

If P3s etc are still being used whilst being heavily overclocked - then I'm sure more modern CPU's will last a hell of a lot longer. AMD 64 ... conroe etc
 
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It's fairly possible that a heavily overclocked - but well cooled CPU is going to last longer than a poorly cooled CPU stuck in a box full of dust.

Extreme voltages do have an affect though, something about electron migration or something. But it's theoretical, not proven.

I have never, ever, seen a post along the lines of "My A64 finally gave up the ghost, I guess it didn't like the 1.5V it's been getting for 2 years"

You can damage components by putting a stupid voltage through them, and you can burn chips by not fitting a cooler. There's videos of exploding CPUs going about, quite entertaining to watch. Although with IHS being standard it's less likely we'll see flying blobs of liquid metal.
 
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i guess you could make one last about 0.2 and a half seconds if you have it at 500 volts :p

other wise i dont really know to be honest, but im never really planning on keeping a cpu long enough that its actually died of old age lol.

alltho my gran has a windows 95 dno what spec, its never put a foot wrong still works lol
 
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The VRM on the motherboard will be the first to go, the CPU's are fairly hardy.

Top end motherboards usually use the best VRM, so i'd guess that the most vulnerable would be the highly overclockerd low/mid end systems...
 
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I think overclocking has cost me more than one motherboard; i've had several give up after a year or two. Its not proven though; they could have just given up without the overclocking. Either way; I think CPUs are pretty damn durable and its GFX cards/motherboards that hurt the most from being pushed. Memory too if its not well cooled.
 
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If its any indication i still have a old AMD Duron 750 overclocked to 1Ghz running since 2002/2003 initially as my main pc, then a media pc and now a file server so its been pretty well hammered :)
 
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