<p>This is probably more appropriate in a different forum, but whatever, I like CC.</p>
<p>So, you overclockers,</p>
<p>What will be the life expectancy of a core i5 2.6 GHz that is overclocked to 3.5+ GHz?</p>
<p>I know that the life expectancy will drop drastically after overclocking but by how much?</p>
<p>The best thing to do would be to run a test at the limits.</p>
<p>I used to overclock my laptop and found that the maximum stable overclock went down over time so there is definitely damage done to the processor. I stopped overclocking after a while and just bought a faster laptop.</p>
<p>You’re going to get a much better response at a dedicated forum because so many have experience overclocking or running overclocked systems all the time. Processors are so fast these days that I don’t feel a need to overclock. I’m on a 2.66 Ghz i7 system right now and the CPU consumption is in the low single-digits almost all the time. I have two of these systems, a 2.5 Ghz Mobile Penryn and my old AMD laptop on my desk running right now. Insane amount of computer horsepower.</p>
<p>At the pace that technology is going in, I seriously doubt the decreased life expectancy will be a problem (if anything, it could provide a good excuse to upgrade to the hot new octo core in the future).</p>
<p>that’s the reason why I’m more than willing to overclock
but if it’s gonna decrease its life to less than four years, then I may have to limit the cranking to just a little bit (like 3.2)</p>