Voltage or Heat?

[tempy]

I've been playing with my E6600 on my Abit AB9 motherboard.

(I have a Thermalright Ultima-90 92/120 mm tower heat sink )

And am a bit puzzled by my CPU temps reported by either CoreTemp or Realtemp (they both report the same)

I should say I'm using a Full tower case and have everything up the top of the case so the motherboard has nothing overhanging it. I also have an extra intake fan (front bottom) and a extra fan at the top back to suck heat out.

anyway...........

My stock voltage temps for both cores are about 29/30 degrees C when idle

I was trying some overclocking yesterday and even at the highest I went (1.50 volts) my idle CPU temps were only 32/33 degrees C

I thought raising voltage made temps go crazy, unless my lovely Thermalright is doing it's job super well and not allowing the CPU to get very warm.

Even with 100% loading and Orthos running, I'm not seeing much more than about 50 degrees C on the cores.

As I'm not seeing high temps(which is what I gather kills CPU's) can I go further up the voltage stakes as long as the temps are kept under control?

Or is voltage a BIG killer regardless of temps?

 

[dagger]

Voltage is the killer. There are failsafes regard temperature. Passing the thermal threshold results in throttle, further on results in shutdown. I's basically impossible to get instant death through high temperature on modern chips. It does lower lifespan of the chip, but since even the best rig becomes obsolete in 5 years, and the chip will last far longer than that, it's not really an issue.

The cpu has to take whatever voltage you feed it. A high enough voltage can cause instant burnout, at any given moment.

 

[CompuTronix]

When testing processor temperatures with Orthos or Prime95, always be sure to use Small FFT's. Large FFT's or Blend will not produce the maximum thermal conditions which are required for apples to apples comparisons.

 

[tempy]

Thanks for the replies so far.

Will take your advice re Orthos.

I think I have witnessed throttle a couple of times.
Everything went into super slo-mode, like my system was running at about 100mhz!