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How long will an Ivy Bridge i5 last?

How long is a piece of string?

Twice as long as half it's length ;)

I guess it depends on the performance levels you're looking to maintain, how often you want/can afford to upgrade etc... I've got a mate who's still perfectly happy running an old core 2 system and is now considering an upgrade after what must be around 4 years, whereas I'm sure there are some people who upgrade every generation.
 
I have my i5-3450 overclocked to 3.86ghz. How long will that last before an upgrade is somewhat necessary? This is my first build.

Every CPU overclocks differently and so the factors that determine the lifespan of your particular CPU are all down to your specific overclock. To give you a very basic idea, the main factors which tend to affect lifespan directly are vcore and the resultant operating temperature.

Your particular CPU has a locked multiplier but I think you can still go 3 or 4 multipliers above the standard multiplier for a particular bin of CPU without issue. I can't remember the exact number as I don't buy non-K sku CPUs myself. You can't touch the BCLK very much on Sandybridge or Ivybridge processors either, and in fact I'd strongly suggest you leave your BCLK at 100 as the benefit of an extra 2 or 3 Mhz is unnoticeable, particuarly on your CPU.

Your particular CPU isn't going to be aggressively overclocked. If you've not touched the voltage (and to get what you've described you shouldn't have had to touch it at all) then in theory you'll find your CPU will last quite a long time - possibly as long as one that hasn't been overclocked, but you just can't say for sure, it could still go pop tomorrow because every CPU is different.

Give us some more info and we can give you a better indication of what acceptable operating conditions and whats not. vcore, multplier, BCLK, and core temps under 100% load would all help.
 
Every CPU overclocks differently and so the factors that determine the lifespan of your particular CPU are all down to your specific overclock. To give you a very basic idea, the main factors which tend to affect lifespan directly are vcore and the resultant operating temperature.

Your particular CPU has a locked multiplier but I think you can still go 3 or 4 multipliers above the standard multiplier for a particular bin of CPU without issue. I can't remember the exact number as I don't buy non-K sku CPUs myself. You can't touch the BCLK very much on Sandybridge or Ivybridge processors either, and in fact I'd strongly suggest you leave your BCLK at 100 as the benefit of an extra 2 or 3 Mhz is unnoticeable, particuarly on your CPU.

Your particular CPU isn't going to be aggressively overclocked. If you've not touched the voltage (and to get what you've described you shouldn't have had to touch it at all) then in theory you'll find your CPU will last quite a long time - possibly as long as one that hasn't been overclocked, but you just can't say for sure, it could still go pop tomorrow because every CPU is different.

Give us some more info and we can give you a better indication of what acceptable operating conditions and whats not. vcore, multplier, BCLK, and core temps under 100% load would all help.

I think the OP is wondering how long his CPU will last until the performance it gives is no longer sufficient- not how long the CPU will last until failure. The absolute lifespan of modern CPUs (the time taken for the CPU to actually fail) is far longer than most people will keep theirs for, which renders it irrelevant (unless you feel like keeping your CPU for another 15 years)
 
For what purpose will the computer be used? Standard office work and web browsing? A very long time. Gaming? I'd say 3-4 years at the max.
 
Why worry, l'm running a i7 920 just over 3 years old can't see no reason it can't go for another 3 years before upgrading.
 
even a i7-920 will go on for a long time.

Heck my Q6600 is still going well in gaming with a 5850 after 5 years, only recently id say ive noticed yeah it sorta needs an overhaul especially with an SSD and better gpu/monitor.
 
If you change your GPU regularly then the CPU will last a very long time in most systems. I'm still running i7 on X58 with GTX580's in SLi and it's more than playable on new games. Intel have to keep churning out new chips because that's their business model, but many offices are still running very old PCs because Office isn't challenging for an iPad anymore, never mind a modern desktop PC.
 
No one really knows as anything could happen, we could have a leap frog in AI which puts more strain on the CPU and get some heavily threaded games etc.
 
No one really knows as anything could happen, we could have a leap frog in AI which puts more strain on the CPU and get some heavily threaded games etc.

+1

It depends on what you're running/doing, and if I had a pound for every time someone told me "all I want a PC for is to do this ..." and then later they used it for something else ...

Inevitably, our requirements change, the software we run changes and evolves - you've only got to look at the glut of people that had to do RAM upgrades from 1Gb on their cheap P4 when they released SP3 for Windows XP.

The fact is no one knows as they don't have a crystal ball.
 
+1

It depends on what you're running/doing, and if I had a pound for every time someone told me "all I want a PC for is to do this ..." and then later they used it for something else ...

Inevitably, our requirements change, the software we run changes and evolves - you've only got to look at the glut of people that had to do RAM upgrades from 1Gb on their cheap P4 when they released SP3 for Windows XP.

The fact is no one knows as they don't have a crystal ball.

This.

I bought my PC for gaming and for that it's fine. It'll probably last another couple of years and I've had it for four.

But...

I recently started using it for a bunch of things that I never intended when I bought it. I don't need to use this computer for Photoshop, right? And it won't be doing renders in Adobe Premier? Wrong. And now the computer sucks.

As a rule of thumb I'd say for gaming, 5 years is probably how long your computer will last. But as above, no one has a crystal ball. A sudden jump in the performance of new hardware could make your computer seem lacking and the same of course applies to software too.
 
This.

I bought my PC for gaming and for that it's fine. It'll probably last another couple of years and I've had it for four.

But...

I recently started using it for a bunch of things that I never intended when I bought it. I don't need to use this computer for Photoshop, right? And it won't be doing renders in Adobe Premier? Wrong. And now the computer sucks.

As a rule of thumb I'd say for gaming, 5 years is probably how long your computer will last. But as above, no one has a crystal ball. A sudden jump in the performance of new hardware could make your computer seem lacking and the same of course applies to software too.

And even then it doesn't really suck. What sucks is that you now know that there's something out there that's much better and effective than what you have. Without that you wouldn't know whether your current PC was slow at the new things it was doing.
 
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