Talk about the risk of running a Q6600 vCore @ 1.5 volts or above for OCing, while you still have good temps. What is the risk? Generally this is due to a high VID number so might have to run hot to get 3.6+ Mhz.

Q6600 GO batch L738B generally have Vid 1.325V. Most need to set the bios close to 1.5 vCore to get a stable machine @ 3.6 MHz.

Here is a screen shot I found of something OCing with high vCore but low temps. Is this risky? BTW.. not my computer but just an example.

In my experience the mobo will go first. People take so much care of their CPU and then the mobo fails or a capacitor blows.
Sorry I dont really know how much life expectancy you can get from 1.5vcore. I would like to know to.

ASUS does use the 8 Phase design but I believe there is a flaw in that design. Take a look at this http://www.xtremesystems.org/forum [...] p?t=151968
(I dont know if this could be really caled a flaw cos every mobo would probably fail at those settings.)

I have seen a couple of these incidents. But these happened on 1.6-1.7vcore.

Looks like asus isn't using enough or those 16v caps or the capacitance isn't enough, the ripple becomes too great and the cap blows.

It does still degrade the life of the CPU even with sufficient cooling(i.e. water cooling in this case) due to electron migration.

Even with good cooling the higher the VCore the more migration that can occur. But since the Q6600 is specified to operate within the 1.5v range it should still live a long healthy life, as long as the cooling stays nice and working.

Every CPU is different though. Some will run at the stock 1.25v. Some will run a bit higher(usually within .05v+/-) or lower. Mine ran at 1.121v at the stock 2.4GHz and runs at 1.224v under load at 3Ghz. But some will need to be a bit higher than 1.25v to get 3GHz(yes even the G0s, but very few) like 1.3v.

Each little step in the VCore will raise the temps a little but not enough to kablooie your CPU. And with most of the new chips you have enough protections(built into the mobo as well) to usually prevent enough damage happening to your CPU.

try increasing the nb voltage

if its a g0 it usually only takes 1.42-1.45v at max after droop

I don't recommend running quads at or above 1.5V, especially when you're subjecting it to 65C constantly. If you would like to keep the quads for a while (3 years), I would stop at 1.42V (3.6Ghz). You probably need 0.5~0.7V to go from 3.6Ghz to 3.8Ghz, and its clearly not a good trade off.

Its really hot @ 1.45v, even with water-cooling..

I would never try 1.5v

I don't know about you guy's but that exploding capacitor on that board wasn't from that board. Wither it be oiled filled or solid, capacitors don't have windings in them. I f you had looked where the circuit was, the cap would have just more then blew, it would take out the cpu too. Also he said he had the voltage at 1.65v

IMHO, I would back it off some.

If the system show is completely stable at that voltage, I wager you will be able to drop the voltage quite a bit if you just tone down the CPU by about 200mhz.

Most likely you will never be able to feel the difference.
The only real reason to push a system to its absolute limit are Benchmark Junkies.

There is no problem with 1.5 volts.....AT ALL.
Also any overclocking sould warrant the best cooling you can afford.

And as far as asus boards go, they go because people often neglect to read their actual voltage vs what is set in BIOS.

Setting 1.5 volts in BIOS WILL NOT give you 1.5 volts, and at 1.5 volts you will not have a problem. You will usually, depending on droop need a setting of 1.51 to even 1.52 in BIOS to get 1.5 actual.

I will agree with zenmaster, that if you can get away with less, then there is no reason not to back it off. That is only logical.

And when one knows what to do, you can get a pretty damned good overclock with a lot less voltage than one would even be led to believe.