Own a 45nm, Core 2 CPU? Don't overclock too much.

http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032018393&post...

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=613...

Just a few of many examples, and I'll tell you my story now.

My q9550 has lasted a year and it's still performing. Barely.

I initially got it to 3.8 ghz at 1.37v just for kicks (ran a 4ghz 1.42v for a 3dmark run once). Passed Linden and Prime95 (8 hours small ftt, rather high temps that reached 74 degrees at times). After running this for a few months, I thought I'd leave it at a perma-stable 3.6ghz at 1.32v (Prime95 small, 20 hours passed, never went past 67 degrees). Three months later, I got a few BSODs and a few crashes/freezes in games. I shot it down to 3.4ghz at 1.28v (Passed OCCT and prime95 16 hours, never went past 58 degrees) and things seemed to be fine for 6 months. Then it stopped working, again. I raised the voltages to 1.3v and it worked again, for a day or two. Then it just refused to work at all no matter what voltage I gave at 3.4ghz, so, I tried to run it at fail-safe settings (2.83ghz with 1.25v) and it crashed during Mass Effect and prime95 blend froze on me 3 minutes in.

I ran memtest86. Passed with flying colors. I raised the voltage to 1.26, and now the CPU works at stock voltages. But for how long? I don't know anymore.

The core 2 series are going to be shafted by better-priced AMD equivalents and the i5/i7 series, but I'm sure a good number still own these chips, and are perhaps considering overclocking them just to extend their lifetime enough until the i5/i7 gets cheaper, or something like that.

Keep your temperatures and voltages low. This isn't the days of the 65nm that handled 1.6v for years on end anymore.