Anyone still overclocking a 5+ year old CPU without issue?

Aye, 980X @ 4GHz.

 

+1
Mobo's CPU VRM section can degrade too, saw that few times.

 

I found an older post of mine when I first started overclocking this chip so just to give you an idea of degradation:

Back in early '14 I needed 1.356v to be stable. Now I need 1.38/1.392v(it fluctuates yay vdroop).

 

My old PC core 2 quad (Q9450) is still overclocked at 3.5Ghz, think it's about 1.25v, that's from 2009, did get one in 2008 but that died after a year; my brother now has my old PC for a server.

The motherboard is four or five years old and is a refurb from China with a 90 day warranty LOL.

 

my i7-2600k is like 6 years old now, been running it @ 4.5 ghz for 4 years I think. Still rock solid, but u never know.

 

Pushing this 2500k to its limits for a long time, still working although with some degradation seen in this thread (http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=404666)

 

you already posted that @ 2nd post



I also posted here once, but I was able to lower it further. From 1.288v to 1.268v, maybe I could go even lower, but it takes time to test.

For example I had to use vccsa 0.040v (0.850v) and cpuv 1.288v, now vccsa 0.140v (real 0.950v) and cpuv 1.268v.. I never used vccsa more then 0.060v so guess that's why, apparently its safe air up to 1.15 -1.20v, water up to 1.30v


so anyway it turned out even better then I expected, lol found that by mistake after so looong :nerd:

 

Eh, i didnt even look.

Hey Tj, is vccsa actually helping with ram stability as well? Thinking about tightening some timings. I can also try reducing voltages here and there if that does the trick.

 

Yes it helps by ram OC and or combo of both, high cpu multi and high ram frequency.

By timings, well it can but there are limits, I noticed 3rd timings are the most crucial for fast read/write/copy.
I tested 0.125v vcssa and in end it still didnt help by 2600mhz OC, but I also tested this at 4.7Ghz cpu, maybe I reached its limit with ram freq., well the system either hard freezes buzz sound or bsod memory management.. Didn't try higher though, maybe I would have to use 0.200v or even 0.250v, but then it can heat more so its a bit tricky..

Although I got some proper speeds in end, read 39gb/s write 41 and copy 38gb/s, but yeah I think those 3rd timings are too tight, if I loosen them a little it already drops too much, not worth it or 2400mhz is faster.:infinity:c1::nerd:

 

So your offset vccsa 0.140v is a real 0.950v? Im asking becouse default is 0.925 i think and Intel also recommend not going higher than 0.975 (i think).

Gonna give it a try tommorow and play with it a little.

 

By haswell real stock is 0.808 - 0.816v, DC 4790K has 0.840v, guess cause of that higher frequency gap and lower binned samples with higher VID.


Yes I saw Sandy uses higher, then try to stay within your limit?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...idge-So-what-does-VccSA-and-VccIO-actually-do

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/266192-29-vccio-vccsa

Ok here they say, to keep it alone @ 0.925v and use VCCIO=qpi/vtt/IMC voltage

 

I'm still running an ancient Phenom II x4 970. It's original speed is 3500MHz, but it was already unstable at default clocks (bad, bad processor). It requires a huge voltage boost just to stay stable at default clocks. I'm feeding it lots of volts now and I overclocked it to 3800MHz. Still runs stable today, but I can't clock much higher (3900MHz leads to instability, blue screens and too much heat).

 

I made a pc for my father around 10 years ago with a Conroe_L Celeron 430 1.8Ghz single core and has been running overclocked to 2.8Ghz @ 1.40v on a thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme all his live , my father still use that pc everyday a few hours to check his emails , facebook and play virtual slot machines.

 

A 2500k that has done 4.6 on air since day one no degradation and a 2600k under water that runs 4.8 without degradation. The 2500k is now on the shelf with the 2600k at 4.6 (will go higher) under a D15S. Gonna see if I can push it to 4.9 on air as I will be replacing the whole system this year and I feel it's time for some reckless fun.

 

Hi,

My i5 2500k has run at 4.5GHz since day 1 for the last 4-5 years.

Within the last month I've began pushing it further to find an excuse for breaking it and getting a second hand 3500k CPU to unlock PCI-E 3.0 on my Motherboard. I've managed to hit 4.8GHz @ 1.36v. A considerable bump but well within range. I think I may have a good candidate here for 5GHz.

 

my 2500k is over 5 years old and still running the same 4.5ghz overclock. CPUZ is now reading just over 1.2v, like a notch over 1.2v

 

Wow, didn't realized it was already 6 years ago, overclocked to only 4.4 for the last 6 years, but still no issues.

 

Keep in mind that even if you overclocked to 4.5 GHz the CPU does clock down when the CPU performance isn't required, unless you completely disabled that in the BIOS AND in the Windows power settings. Even if you run 24/7, if you're not loading the CPU it really wouldn't make much difference than running it a couple of hours a day.

The real question would be, has anyone had such a high overclock and pushed the CPU for extended periods (at least a few hours a day), and frequently? Gaming doesn't necessarily count seing as the CPU isn't likely to be running flat out consistently. A better example would be with video encoding. Most people who have a high overclock rarely push the CPU, and as such the CPU is usually downclocked for power efficiency.

I had my i5-3570K at 4.4 GHz for a long time during winter, and 4.3 GHz in summer. I now run it at 4.3 GHz. The reason for this is it runs much cooler at 4.3 GHz, so that is what I consider a safe threshold. Keep in mind I do a very signficant amount of video encoding, with two encodes parallel to saturate the CPU, because of the CPU saturation it is a bit quicker than one at a time, and also other processing as well. I have it on 24/7, and it's basically running 100 percent the whole time.

The computer is now over 4 years old, and for that whole time, bar a little over two weeks at Christmas time, the computer has been running 24/7 at 'full' load, including AVX usage in the video encoder, and it's still going strong. Reason I mention AVX is that the new Intel CPU's have to reduce the speed for AVX seeing as there are temperature issues in heavy workloads.

I also have 2x8 GB DDR3-2400 RAM at 10-12-12-31, been running that since the original build, this helps with the encoding speed a bit, and would in theory result in higher CPU temperatures seeing as the encode rate increases.

I believe if I kept it at 4.4 GHz it wouldn't have like running like this for so long, the temperature difference between 4.3 GHz and 4.4 GHz was quite significant. I therefore believe overclocking isn't just a function of finding the point of instability and using just a bit slower than that, but it's a function of temperature as well. If you find the point at which temperatures increase signficantly and is still stable, it's from that point that you should back it off slightly such that the temperatures are manageable at full load. If this means running at 4.3 GHz instead of 4.4 GHz, when you consider how much faster that actually is in processing capability, it's not worth it.

The same goes for GPU. The common overclocking argument is find where graphics instability occurs and back it off a it. The end result of this is people complaining about the quality of their NVidia or AMD card, when in fact its their fault, they RMA it, get a replacement, and everyone else has to 'pay' for it through increased prices. Again, overclocking isn't bad, but it has to be sensible and most recommendations out there aren't.

For CPU I would recommend just below the point where temperature increases signficantly for a small bump in speed, even if the faster speed is still stable. For the GPU, I would suggest the half way point between normal clocks and the maximum overclock (the maximum overclock being the small drop back from the point where the overclock is unstable). In reality, if the game isn't playable at that speed, then it won't be playable at the faster speed.

There's three reasons to overclock:

1. to make the most of your hardware
2. for bragging rights
3. both of the above

People should concentrate on point number 1, because for points number 2 and 3, no matter how much you overclock to have the highest, some other idiot will be able to do it better! And there really isn't a worthwhile performane increase in doing so.