Im sure this has been answered before, but im going to ask anyway

Whats the max safe (as in it wont drasticaly shorten your cpu's life) temp that the X2 4200+ (90nm) should reach.

Mine is currently at 2.55ghz and idles at about 28 C. Under orthos prime it reaches 60 tops....is this too high?

In games at other tasks it rarely gets above 50 C

Is there anyone else out there who can give me any advice about how much further i can go?

I think for the 90nm x2's the max is low to mid 60's. The 65nm x2's can go as high as 72, but you really shouldn't be getting close to that. Are you using the stock hsf? After-market cooling really can make a difference - check out tom's hardware reviews of cpu coolers, I picked up the cooler master hyper tx2 and I'm very pleased with the results.

General rule of thumb is stay under 65C. You can't go wrong with that.

Obviously lower the better, so get as low as you can.

Thanks for the info, i had thought (or hoped) that i had more safety margin than 5c. Best take it down a tad as summer is coming.

have you set the voltage manually?and try to minimise vcore.

I havent changed the vcore...its 1.35v. Its stock cooler too.....

Im not sure if there is any point getting a better cooler, i mean whats the max that i could realistically reach?

Only OCed because i was bored one day....nearly all my games are limited by my gpu (3850)

Your good to go! I had a 4600+ X2 at 2.7ghz load was 55-59C with Thermalright XP-90 and ran it solid for 6 months before I sold it.