How long does an Overclocked Gaming PC last?

Rezident · 26 Feb 2020 at 10:43

When my brother's old old PC died a few years ago I game him my trusty backup rig (i5-2500K, 16GB RAM, RX 480 8GB) and was pleasantly surprised that it lasted for a few more years playing games (at 1080p anyway).

When he said it made a bang! and smoke started coming out of it, I thought: fair enough, I'd gotten, like 8 or 9 years out of it, which is a record for me. I wasn't sure if it was the capacitors on the mobo or the psu but after replacing the PSU, amazingly, it is alive again! And playing games (albeit on Windows 7 which now seems to be out of support!) and with some parts that must be ten years old!

I normally replace my own system every 3 years or so and sell my old gear, so I was just wondering how long do these things actually last?

What's the longest you've had a rig last?

Rroff · 26 Feb 2020 at 10:53

A lot of variables to that - vcore and high frequency itself doesn't tend to kill CPUs quickly if temperatures are decent but sometimes things like if a CPU is run on too high VTT it can degrade much faster, same with RAM some stuff will only last months with extra voltage/frequency no matter the cooling other RAM might last 10 years.

An old Q6600 of mine is still knocking around - I ran it on max voltage under water for ~2-3 years with high usage doing various compute tasks then my dad had it (at stock) until 2018 and now someone else is using it to resurrect an old system still working fine. My 4820K system has been running overclocked since 2013 so far still fine.

Rezident · 26 Feb 2020 at 19:11

Yes I had a Q6600 that lasted years too.

I'm surprised the 2500k is still going but hopefully he will get another while out of it.

Vince · 26 Feb 2020 at 19:19

I have a 1tb samsung spinpoint f1 that is about 15 12 years old and still in rude health

MissChief · 26 Feb 2020 at 19:22

My 4.2GHz 2500K is still running in my sons machine and it's only recently with Jedi Fallen Order that it's really starting to show its age. That was bought in 2011. Sure I've added RAM (4GB to 8GB) changed video card three times (670-780 6GB-980) and an SSD but its still decent at 1080p.

CuriousTomCat · 26 Feb 2020 at 20:00

The server at work lasted 25 years before it got replaced and still worked. There's no reason why a CPU wouldn't last for more than 50 years. Overclocking will cut that down by less than half depending on the extent of the overclock.

Case in point, the CPU onboard Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 have both been working for 42 years.

If you buy a PC and left it switched on, it could last for decades. It's the starting up and shutting down every day that reduces the life of a computer more than anything. The heating up of components after a switch on, then the cooling down of components after a shutdown. This is because metal expands and contracts with heat and weakens solder joints etc. It causes havock over time.

sadbuttrue · 26 Feb 2020 at 21:54

A friend is still rocking my old i3 750 @ 4ghz (50% overclock from base 2.67ghz- those were the days) - 10.5 years old.

Terminal_Boy · 26 Feb 2020 at 22:04

I’m still gaming on the one in my signature that was built in 2011. Replaced the PSU a couple of years back when I thought my brand new Vega 64 kept BSOD’ing. Turns out the Vega was the problem.

Avalon · 27 Feb 2020 at 01:46

Well my first ever 286 with 2MB and dual 20MB MFM HD’s still plays F29 Retaliator with the turbo button pressed and it ran 24/7/365 for at least a decade before I got it. The general rule is capacitors fail, other than that PC’s have few instant flaws - I still had an old XT that worked till recently.

JasonM · 27 Feb 2020 at 03:24

The 2 things that decrease component life are heat and voltage.

If you have a good CPU cooler and case cooling, and you run at stock voltages, then an overclocked CPU should last as long as a non-overclocked CPU with an inferior CPU cooler.

The other factor is having a PSU with good ripple output. The less ripple then less work component VRM's have to do, also less voltage you will require when overclocking. A good quality PSU allows for a good margin of overclocking even before you have to increase any voltages.

Mcnumpty2323 · 27 Feb 2020 at 04:44

My old 2600k at 5ghz is still going
Strong for the guy I sold it to
I always buy good quality motherboard
And psu
Whether that helps or its just down
To pure luck I don't know

Joxeon · 27 Feb 2020 at 09:33

Ideally you want to upgrade a pc every 5-6 years with a gpu upgrade every 3 years or so if you want keep performance to a decent level. That said the hardware could last over 20 years if well looked after or could die in 3 months it's a lottery.

dowcow · 27 Feb 2020 at 13:56

My x58 6c12t i7 980x is still going, but I'm about to go Ryzen. It really helped that it was tripple channel ram, 6 cores and a good overclock. Originally started out with an i7 930 (4c8t) in this board and upgraded the gpu several times (ati 5870 to 580GTX to TitanGTX mk1 to 1070GTX. I think the IDE controller went kaput, and I have an Intel NIC and a M2 pci-ex card and it isn't really obsolete as a gaming PC yet, despite the age I think it should serve my nephew for a few years. There was a thing for putting cheap Xeon cpus in these x58 boards, and I hear the price has gone a bit daft considering it is such old tech.

strumpusplunket · 27 Feb 2020 at 16:42

MissChief said:
My 4.2GHz 2500K is still running in my sons machine and it's only recently with Jedi Fallen Order that it's really starting to show its age. That was bought in 2011. Sure I've added RAM (4GB to 8GB) changed video card three times (670-780 6GB-980) and an SSD but its still decent at 1080p.

Pretty much the exact same situation in our house! Our lad was getting the ocassional blue screen in Fallen Order, so I dialled the OC back from 4.4 to 4.3GHz and it's still chugging along - although I do notice some hitching and stuttering from time to time when he's playing. He seems less aware of it than me for some reason. He does want an upgrade for his birthday, though.

Jimmy Weirdarms · 27 Feb 2020 at 18:00

Rezident said:
And playing games (albeit on Windows 7 which now seems to be out of support)

If you still have the product key you can install win 10 - the "free upgrade" period is long over but MS still let you do it, and that hardware is more than good enough.

If you wanted to, of course.

Phil2008 · 27 Feb 2020 at 18:40

JasonM said:
The 2 things that decrease component life are heat and voltage.

If you have a good CPU cooler and case cooling, and you run at stock voltages, then an overclocked CPU should last as long as a non-overclocked CPU with an inferior CPU cooler..

Thats why I spend a good week, or how ever long it takes to overclock my cpu's I have had over the years, to get the lowest volts though the cpu's as possible without being unstable when stressed. The reason is because I like to keep my hardware for as long as possible, untill things start to chug and games are no longer playable.

Skynet5 · 27 Feb 2020 at 19:03

I think computing is the rare electronics industry where parts rarely brake.

Everything else seems to fall apart though. Quality of goods today in horrendously bad.

BUDFORCE · 27 Feb 2020 at 19:42

Still running my i7 2600k.

I am not sure how old my motherboard and CPU is now, plus the sheer amount of hours of use. I am heading towards giving some serious thought about replacing it soon, but given it'll run modern games pretty well still, I just cant bring myself to do it yet.

Im framing this CPU when I do eventually move on.

EDIT:

Oh seen the title of the thread specifically says overclocked, well for the first yea or so it was clocked to 4.8ghz, then to cut a long story short due to a bios thingy I had to go down to 4.2ghz where it has been the rest of its life and still continues.

Phil2008 · 27 Feb 2020 at 21:13

lnoton said:
I think computing is the rare electronics industry where parts rarely brake.

Everything else seems to fall apart though. Quality of goods today in horrendously bad.

I agree,, but this z370 motherboard I have now is lighter and not as thick as my z68xp-ud4 motherboard that I bought about 7yrs ago was. So it will be interesting to see if this fails before I need to upgrade the motherboard again, hopefully in 4+ yrs.

Tealc · 27 Feb 2020 at 21:42

I'm still running an i7 920 overclocked to 3.6GHz although the surrounding components have been upgraded such as extra RAM, graphics cards, multiple SSD. I don't game as much as I used to though but the system still does ok. I could push the CPU to 4GHz but to be honest I was always happier with a quieter system.