Intel Q9450/9550 - how is the CPU holding up over prolonged period?

[GundamF91]

I've been running my Q9450 for a little over 2 years now. I had it up to 3.6Ghz without a sweat using vCore of 1.27, but for normal daily use I drop it down to 3.2Ghz since I dont' really need it any higher. It's been working extremely reliably for 2 years, but it is at a modest overclock after all.

I'm curious for those of you that have cranked up the Penryn up higher and stayed there, such as running 3.6Ghz or 3.8Ghz day in and day out, does overclocking ability hold, or does the ability erode that requires additional vCore over time? I remember it was said back then that the metal gates in Core2 chips would erode over time under higher vCore, but nobody could ever substantiate it with actual use since Core2Quad was pretty new at the time. How about now?

 

[happy medium]

holding steady @ 3.6. I don't use high volts so it should be fine.

 

[cubeless]

mine has run 3.8 for a year, then 4.0 for a year with better mobo, now is back at 3.8 because it takes a chunk less juice and cooling than 4.0... It's a great cpu... it'll still do 4.0... i don't see any degradation...

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I played around with overclocking since my first PC which I custom built. I found it rewarding until my socket 939 days then it started getting expensive because I got so addicted to it. My downfall from high overclocking came from failed overclocks due to faulty ram (now that I look back) which also lead to corrupted files (no thanks) So now-a-days I'll just keep it moderate and only with a gaming machine. Daily machines and my video editing machine will always be stock speeds.

Be careful.

 

[KingstonU]

Had my Q9550 (C1 stepping) for 2.5 years now. Brought to 3.6 GHz for a while but that was too hard to keep so I brought it to 3.5 GHz. Had that for a year but then going to a 64-bit OS made me have to drop it another 100MHz to 3.4 GHz to the get the stability/reliability I prefer. Been 3.4 since, I don't even notice the difference so I will keep it there and don't see the need to upgrade anytime soon.

 

[Schmide]

I am of the backed off q9550 crowd. I really didn't notice much of a difference between 4 and 3.6. I even run at stock sometimes when I don't need it.

 

[Marcuf]

:whiste:So I left my HWMonitor and do some tasks and the results show highest 85 degrees and lowest 55 degrees..

 

[ZipSpeed]

My Q9550 has been running at 3.4 GHz for two years at stock voltage without any complaints.

 

[Obsoleet]

3ghz on stock volts since the chip's OEM launch day. I could run 3.2ghz without OCing the RAM, but 3ghz has been fine for me. Just wanted a little boost for the video card.