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CPU performance decrease?

Soldato
Joined
23 Jul 2009
Posts
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Looking at my vantage scores over time my cpu score has steadily decreased by about 500 points over about 6 months. Is that normal considering the clocks are the same? Every few months I've had to raise voltages when I find that my previously stable overclock has become unstable (presumably due to raise in ambient temps). Would this reduce performance?
 
Just seen your running 4.5 gHz. Is that 24/7?

If so you might well be experiencing cpu degredation from running at such a high clock.

This would in turn give a need to up vcore and possibly loose performance.

Course if thats just a bench clock i have no idea. Sounds like your cpu might be slowly dieing tho, altho cant be sure.

How are your temps?
 
yeah it's 24/7, but wolfdales shouldn't degrade at 1.36V (which I started it off at, now at 1.38), as far as I was aware it was only likely above 1.4V. It had occurred to me though. Temps peak at 71C in Linx, but never anywhere near that in regular use.
 
Screw it, I think I'll drop it down to 4.2GHz to get the vcore down and hope I haven't got a degraded chip. I don't mind a bit of wear and tear over time as a result of OCing a chip, that's part of the risk, but after 6 months, I think I'll try to get some more longevity out of it!
 
Weird, after dropping to 4.25GHz and lowering Vcore by about .05V, my cpu scores have risen to nearly what they originally were.
 
Nah, left everything as it was and dropped cpu multi and everything was stable. Think my chip was unhappy about a 50% 24/7 OC
 
I was just wondering as I have a 50% over clock as well, but have speedstep so obviously it rarely maxes out.
 
I disabled it, assuming it would mean more vcore for a stable clock at those speeds, and I was trying to keep it as low as possible. Ironically, this may have caused more damage than simply enabling speedstep and bumping the max vcore up a notch.
 
how does speedstep work for you i7 clockers? u go to 4.2 and just enabled it so it drops you down a bit when your idle saving power but more importantly cpu lifespan?

i thought u always disabled speedstep when overclocking though but i guess 4.5 is differnt eh.
 
Well, I can't speak for the i7 crowd, but disabling speedstep CAN help you get a more stable overclock, but leaving it on doesn't mean you won't be able to. Especially when running such high clocks and voltages, speedstep makes a lot of sense.
 
On Q6600 speedstep didn't make it any harder for me, the bit I don't get is how Turbo boost would work with an OC
 
Weird, after dropping to 4.25GHz and lowering Vcore by about .05V, my cpu scores have risen to nearly what they originally were.
Hey Devrij, I'm not sure what's going on with your 4.5GHz clock but lowering the E8400's multi from stock [x9.0] to [8.5x] would overclock the NBCC from 500MHz to 562.5MHz which is an extra 12.5% that may account for the performance increase @ 4.25GHz vs 4.5GHz *if* the benchmark app was particularly sensitive to system bandwidth! :)

Have you tried using Fritz to determine the speed difference between 4250 & 4500?
 
Hey Devrij, I'm not sure what's going on with your 4.5GHz clock but lowering the E8400's multi from stock [x9.0] to [8.5x] would overclock the NBCC from 500MHz to 562.5MHz which is an extra 12.5% that may account for the performance increase @ 4.25GHz vs 4.5GHz *if* the benchmark app was particularly sensitive to system bandwidth! :)

Have you tried using Fritz to determine the speed difference between 4250 & 4500?

Ah, pretty significant drop when comparing my old fritz benchies with this.

4.5
Superpi.jpg


4.25
Fritz4250.jpg

Superpi was 11.173 btw at this clock

Can you explain that bit about the NBCC? Always looking to expand my knowledge :)
 
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At what point would one worry about CPU degredation? My i7 920 @ 4ghz has a vcore of 1.2v in the BIOS, 1.18 in CPU-Z. It can hit high 70s in stress testing but rarely goes above high 60s day-to-day. Will the chip be happy to stay as it is for the next few years or can I expect degredation also (sorry to hijack the thread!)?
 
Well, it's a natural process for any chip, but overclocking accelerates it. It was a problem particularly associated with wolfdale chips, but I was always under the assumption it was only a risk at higher voltages. I haven't seen any threads regarding i7 degradation so I would presume it's not such an issue with those chips.
 
At what point would one worry about CPU degredation? My i7 920 @ 4ghz has a vcore of 1.2v in the BIOS, 1.18 in CPU-Z. It can hit high 70s in stress testing but rarely goes above high 60s day-to-day. Will the chip be happy to stay as it is for the next few years or can I expect degredation also (sorry to hijack the thread!)?
That should be fine at that speed and Vcore but if you want to be safe you can allways drop it to 3.8
and lower the vcore even more
 
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