Is Active Cooling of VRMs Necessary on X99?

Schwartzinator

Honorable
Nov 20, 2013
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10,710
I recently rolled the dice and replaced my old chip (L429XXXX) with a much newer one (J547XXXX) and it overclocks beautifully. Where just booting into windows at 4.5GHz was a struggle with anything less than 1.3v, this new CPU is happy to run all day at a lowly 1.18v at the same clock speed. Ideally, I'd have just kept it there, but I recently ran across an overclocking guide put out by Asus in which it recommended active cooling of the VRMs when surpassing 4.0GHz on the 5960X. I went back in and checked the temps of my VRMs in AI Suite and found that they're idling around 50c and would peak in the low 70s under load. While most VRMs seem to be rated for higher temps than this, it makes me uncomfortable so I backed the overclock down to 4.0GHz. I was then able to make some pretty heavy cuts on supplied voltage, and the VRMs are now down to idling in the 30s and reach the mid 50s under load. Should I be concerned about the longevity of my Asus X99 Deluxe if I don't employ active cooling?