Overclocking and component life span?

[Insanties_birth]

Okay guys I'm arguing with my brother on how safe it is to overclock, I've got an i5 760 2.8 GHz and stuffed it in with a GTX 460 (hardly a hot card) and they're in a haf 932 so a pretty good case for cooling. I want to overclock it to a very small 3.2 Ghz just for a little extra speed and if I get a Titan Fenrir cooler down the line then to 3.6 GHz, baring in mind I also used some Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) on the processor do you think these sort of overclocks would effect the life span of the components in any way? I feel it's cooled well enough and overclocked so little that it'd never really lose any life span but my brother thinks it's damaging.

Also if you don't mind could you tell me if you've personally had pretty high overclocks for a long amount of time (over 2 years ideally)?

Thanks guys for any responses as we don't want to damage the parts.

 

[Rroff]

Theres 3 issues, heat, voltage and electro-migration which both on their own and cumulatively can cause problems.

As a general rule most electronic devices are designed with a 5 or 10% voltage tolerance so small voltage increases won't have much if any affect on expected lifespan.

Again as a general rule most electronic components see dramatically shortened lifespan when running above 80C for long periods... however often they will see dramatically increased lifespan even when overclocked when you can keep the temperatures below 60C.

 

[Arcimbaldo]

I would say small overclocks are fine due to little if no voltage changes, these will hardly effect the lifespan. However when talking about 3.5 ghz+ overclocks a lot more voltage is generally needed which does kill the components, however if you have a HAF932 (i have one) i imagine your temps are already quite low, so you should be able to cope with the voltage differences fine.
I have been running a Phenom II 550 at 3.8ghz (from 3.1) for 6months now but as thats no help a guy i did work experience with was running an e8400 at 4ghz for two years and its still not showing any signs of dying.

 

[Insanties_birth]

Thanks guys, I guess sticking to the low overclocks is best then. I'll avoid 3.6 and go for 3.5 if I get an after market cooler since that should be plenty fast and cool enough to keep the life span there.
I don't believe there's too big a risk at 3.6 but you never know.

 

[madindehead]

How long do you really plan on keeping your processor for? That is the question.

As long as you have good temps, and voltages within the accepted ranges, then the life span shouldn't really be shortened too much. Sure, we keep CPUs for longer than GPUs etc, but still, most people here probably don't keep their CPU for longer than 5 years or so on their main PC.

The difference between 3.5GHz and 3.6GHz isn't exactly much. An extra 100MHz at those speeds won't tip your processor over the edge.