FX-8350 Voltages for OC

sorta a mishmash of questions i'll try to help.

CPUs degrade due to the RESULT of increased voltage, HEAT. It's not the voltage that kills a cpu (in general) it's the heat that does.

Now before i start talking temps i need to make something clear. AMD does not use thermometers on their cpus (they stopped with the release of the phenomII). They use a mathematical algorithm based on power fluctuations and voltages and who knows what else to measure a temperature "estimate". This means AMD cpu core temps when reported accurately are not actual "core temps"... if they're compatible to anything they're closest to a heat spreader temp; or surface temp of the cpu.

THIS is a huge difference from intel, and leads to a lot of confusion. We don't know what the temp of an AMD core is running at, we don't have an actual dependable temp measurement. We can only go by what the company tells us. So when an amd cpu reports a core temp of 65C, that's not it's actual core temp as "intel" would define it... or as any sane person would define it either.

Now we throw into the mix that because it's a temp number generated by an algorithm, it's known to be inaccurate. On the Phenom II you could count on the temps of the cpu to be reported inaccurately by as much as 20C in one direction or another. On piledriver it's even more complicated as piledriver cpus typically don't report their temps accurately under 30C-40C... meaning you can see wild temp swings under those temps and then something approaching a solid temp when it's under load. That said i've seen piledriver cpus fail to report core temps accurately in any way whatsoever, which really can make overclocking a bit nerve wracking.

Now that disclaimer is out of the way, Vishera/Piledriver cpus are stable up to around a reported core temp of 70C... according to AMD the max safe temp for the chips is 90C, but like with the phenomII cpus, piledriver chips won't get to 90C, because they become unstable and will crash your system up around a reported 70C (phenomII cpus would do this around a reported 58-62C).

I would feel safe with any piledriver cpu at 65C or lower... generally speaking if you're hitting those numbers i don't think you have anything to fear about heat damage... if you're getting up over 70C i would expect you're starting to get into a "yellow/caution" zone where you might begin to damage the cpu with heat.

as for voltages, as long as heat isn't an issue i wouldn't worry about any vcore voltage under 1.55V

If your cpu can run prime95 without issue at 4.5ghz then i would just keep pushing the cpu multiplier higher until it won't run prime95 on stock voltage. it sounds like you have an above average cpu... so a 4.9/5.0 overclock on air might be possible.