Highest Safe Volts on a E2160
- Thread starter Ravie
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Intel states a max safe vcore of 1.55. Shouldn't need to run over that unless you have a crappola chip (like me 
) or if you are pushing for some huge overclock. Good luck have fun!
) or if you are pushing for some huge overclock. Good luck have fun!
Intel don't say 1.55v is the max safe voltage it's in the spec sheet as the maximum voltage period. How safe it is is debatable and depends on luck especially as it'd be like a furnace under the IHS with a hot running CPU at that voltage. 
If you could keep it reasonably cool at 1.55v it might be ok though.
If you could keep it reasonably cool at 1.55v it might be ok though.
ive had 1.7v through my quad
Crazy!
At least your cooling is no doubt keeping temps well in check. The E21xx CPUs are well known to run very hot strangely too seeing as they're the slowest/seemingly least likely to do so but that's just the way it is.
Like Cob says the temperature is what you need to pay attention to and excellent cooling might allow 1.55v on these CPUs but for average air cooling it's unlikely.
I disagree about 65C being the maximum safe core temperature. I think it's far in excess of that, after all, 65C is the maximum case temperature quoted by Intel, so what are the cores at that? More like 85-90C I reckon. The CPU will throttle before it overheats then shut down, so effectively it saves itself anyway if you do something silly.
I'ts wrong to generalise at the extreme end of core temperatures IMHO. Unless perhaps you are certain you're referring to an E21xx with the L2 stepping which has a 100c TjunctionMax but even then I'd still say max of around 65c to 75c depending on hot or cool ambient room temp and especially hot or cool ambient in-case temp. Another consideration is not everyone uses top of the range components so someone might have a hot running PSU or a hot running graphics card or have inefficient case cooling so the lower the in-case temperature the better in such situations.
Also the maximum case temperature (Tcase) isn't all that useful for the M0 steppings E21xx CPUs as they still have an 85c TjunctionMax and the delta between TCase and Tjunction isn't 15c +/- 3c like for the L2 steppings it's more like 5c +/- 5c.
I have a reasonably warm running E2140 M0 and the delta between Tcase and Tjunction is ~5c at idle yet at load TCase and Tjunction is nearly always the same:
E2140 @ 3.2GHz with 1.325v:
I also have a reasonably cool running E2180 and the delta between Tcase and Tjunction is nearly always ~5c.
E2180 @ 3.2GHz with 1.4125v:
It can become incredibly hot in the case when a CPU is approaching it's thermal throttling point so I wouldn't recommend anyone to allow their CPU to get near to it unless they really know what they are doing.
The way I see it is this; The maximum safe temperature is the temperature the CPU starts to throttle at. That is Intel's built-in protection mechanism to stop you overheating the CPU. I don't know of any current Intel CPU's that throttle at 65C or anywhere near it. The earlier Core2Duo's throttle at 85C, and some of the newer ones throttle even higher than that. So while I agree that it may be wrong to generalise about the maximum temperatures, it's irrelevant anyway as the CPU will always throttle and shut down before you can heat-damage it.
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Indeed ^. Some people are so paranoid about volts and temps etc. Don't worry about it, these chips are no doubt put into the wrong motherboards, ran with the complete wrong voltage, shoved in cases with little to no airflow and then having the case put inside cabinets etc. These things are built with stability in mind. They can take the punishment
It's like you are only considering the CPU specification in your analysis but what about everything else in the system? Can everything else cope with the heat being generated? IMO it's not as simple as going by a couple of lines in the Intel specification while also ignoring everything else that should be a consideration.
Intel test CPUs to ensure they work at the VID they deem is necessary for it to run with stability. Of course when it's not being overclocked or overvolted we can expect a CPU to take a lot of punishment but mabye it's naive to also believe it's the same situation for a heavily overclocked and possibly heavily overvolted CPU.Indeed ^. Some people are so paranoid about volts and temps etc. Don't worry about it, these chips are no doubt put into the wrong motherboards, ran with the complete wrong voltage, shoved in cases with little to no airflow and then having the case put inside cabinets etc. These things are built with stability in mind. They can take the punishment
Also I've tested thermal throttling (TM2) and a C2D won't always throttle or shut down at extreme core temperatures! The first time I tested by removing the heatsink and of course in that instance it reached it's thermal throttle point on both cores and started to throttle and seconds later it shut itself down.
Here is a shot of it where I tested again and managed to put the heatsink back on before it shut itself down:
The next testing I only disconnected the Tuniq Tower's fan and it reached ~80c where one of the cores was switching to a throttle speed/lower voltage and then back to full speed again while the other core didn't throttle. I left it running for a while and it didn't shut down it maintained the ~80c temps and core 1 didn't ever throttle.
It's like you guys are saying it'd be safe to run a heavily overclocked CPU like that. Sorry but that is surely crazy talk.
