can cpu clock speeds kill a cpu?

[jordanbuilds1]

i need everyones opinion here, is voltage the only factor that kills a cpu or can clock speeds kill it too?

[jaslion]

I mean it depends but normally its voltage or amps that will do it.

 

But clockspeed can be linked as often bumping clock speed will increase those if left on auto.

 

If all you do is leave all asettings on stock, turn of auto and send clockspeed its unlikely but it has happened before.

 

I know that from amd fx extreme ocing that even with totally acceptable settings that the chips would run at for years if you pushed beyond 6ghz some would just go poof or refuse to run at stock settings or oc ever again.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

20 minutes ago, jordanbuilds1 said:

i need everyones opinion here, is voltage the only factor that kills a cpu or can clock speeds kill it too?

Pure clockspeed no, about as stupid as those bclk killing things myths

 

Its a combination of voltage and temp or rather a curve where degradation shoots up exponentially for a given temp say 1.4v is safe to run at tjmax but 1.45v only at 90c or below and 1.5v at 70c or below kind of exponential but this is with the assumption of a stresstest load like prime95 smallest ffts

[podkall]

2 hours ago, jordanbuilds1 said:

i need everyones opinion here, is voltage the only factor that kills a cpu or can clock speeds kill it too?

Ask yourself this, why does voltage kill CPU?

[Haswellx86]

Voltage directly influences the electrical field around the transistor and higher the voltage the faster the transistor switches. To control this raw variance the clock is set to co-ordinate all the operations in the CPU.

 

More voltage directly affects the degradation of the chip which increases chances of Hot Carrier Injection (trapping of electrons or holes), Bias Temperature Instability (charge trapping at silicon-oxide interface), Time-Dependent Dielectric Breakdown (defects such as broken bonds) and Electromigration (migration of atoms). The increased thermal output also accelerates all degradation mechanisms. The silicon will have a range of safe voltage (in which degradation still exists but very slow) after which degradation effects will raise exponentially with increasing voltage.

 

If you increase voltage but don't increase the clock speed, you are essentially wasting the additional voltage if your CPU was already stable at that voltage.

 

Now when both clock speed and voltage are increased, the transistors not only switch faster due to more voltage but also switch more times in a period of time. This increases power consumption as current (which is added up along a period of time) is required more often to operate the transistors. More power generates more thermal load which accelerates degradation as mentioned before. The transistors also work more which multiplies with the value of degradation.

 

So, voltage is the primary cause of degradation and going beyond a limit increases degradation exponentially, and the clock speed multiplies itself with the value of degradation which means if the CPU is running at low voltages and high clock frequency (assuming the voltage is sufficient), the degradation is slow due to the low voltage and frequency, though high, with the voltage doesn't account to a lot of degradation but if the voltage is raised significantly but the clock frequency remains the same, the degradation is hugely accelerated with the voltage and the clocks. So in this case, lowering the clocks with that amount of voltage will slower down the degradation process, but it will only slow down and not actually fix the CPU from degrading due to the high voltage. It would just need more time to hit that level of degradation with lower clocks.

[starsmine]

No. There is no mechinism there. 

You can corrupt stuff, you can corrupt a lot of stuff, but you wont kill a thing. 

[Haswellx86]

16 hours ago, starsmine said:

No. There is no mechinism there. 

You can corrupt stuff, you can corrupt a lot of stuff, but you wont kill a thing. 

?

 

Won't corrupting beyond a limit kill it?

[starsmine]

5 minutes ago, Haswellx86 said:

?

 

Won't corrupting beyond a limit kill it?

Kill the CPU?

you cant corrupt what you cant write to. The CPU will continue to work fine, you can kill other things sure. 

[Haswellx86]

40 minutes ago, starsmine said:

Kill the CPU?

you cant corrupt what you cant write to. The CPU will continue to work fine, you can kill other things sure. 

Sorry idk what you are exactly talking about.

 

The OP asks if clock speed can kill a CPU. As I explained above, more voltage increases degradation and beyond the safe point, it increases degradation exponentially. The clock speed is what actually drives the work and thus, degradation. It is multiplied with the value of degradation. More clocks at higher voltage will definitely degrade the chip faster than lower clocks at that same high voltage. This will only slow down the degradation not fix the results of high voltage but if we take the additional thermal load in account, that accelerates the value of degradation.

[starsmine]

21 minutes ago, Haswellx86 said:

Sorry idk what you are exactly talking about.

 

The OP asks if clock speed can kill a CPU. As I explained above, more voltage increases degradation and beyond the safe point, it increases degradation exponentially. The clock speed is what actually drives the work and thus, degradation. It is multiplied with the value of degradation. More clocks at higher voltage will definitely degrade the chip faster than lower clocks at that same high voltage. This will only slow down the degradation not fix the results of high voltage but if we take the additional thermal load in account, that accelerates the value of degradation.

Voltage was not part of OP's question. 

you need more voltage at higher clock speeds to stabilize a chip because of parasitic capacitance that has an effect on clock skew... but why is clock skew an issue?
Its because of set ups and hold times. if you clock in a transition you are metastable. 
if you are metastable, there is a chance you lose data, aka data is corrupted. 

Clock speed only can corrupt data, it does not degrade anything. 

Dynamic power is effected by clock speed, sure, but that is tangential. 


But frequency does not cause breakdown in the efficacy of a transistor outside of the local possibility of metastability, which is strictly a transitory issue that is rectified by lowering the clock speed. VDD/VCC is at the source, not the gate.


This is a NAND gate. A and B are the data, one of which could be a clock. VCC is tied to the source. 

You can clock the gate at terrahertz and it wont degrade the transistors in any way shape or form. You just wont get the values you want out of the source or the drain. AKA, corrupted data. 

[Haswellx86]

@starsmine 

 

You are explaining data errors caused due to insufficient voltage for the clock speed. I was explaining degradation caused due to clock frequency which you denied.

 

The clock is what runs the CPU and drives voltage through the transistors. Higher clock frequency means the transistor switches more times in a period of time, contributing to the usual wear and tear and more thermal load and current also contributes in the usual degradation. But if the voltage is higher and especially beyond the safe limit, higher clock frequency will amplify the effects of higher voltage.

 

[freeagent]

Typically, amperage is what would kill a CPU. It is a direct result of voltage. So if you run a static clock and voltage, be very careful. Most static overclocks run by people are not all load stable. Some loads will not run at all.

[Dedayog]

On 5/12/2025 at 12:20 PM, jordanbuilds1 said:

i need everyones opinion here, is voltage the only factor that kills a cpu or can clock speeds kill it too?

Why do you need our opinions?

 

What are you doing, or potentially doing, that has you worried?

 

As you can see, it's relative.

[starsmine]

5 hours ago, freeagent said:

Typically, amperage is what would kill a CPU. It is a direct result of voltage. So if you run a static clock and voltage, be very careful. Most static overclocks run by people are not all load stable. Some loads will not run at all.

Its not typically amperage. though yes, amperage can melt a thing. P = IR^2 and all that. But the resistance is dynamic. 
An unstable static overclock is because of that, the capacitive load (which is a complex form of resistance, as in its impedance) can change and you can fail by having the power rails vdroop when the load is so high. and its because of that increased load causing the voltage to drop causing increased clock skews somewhere. 
AVX is notorious because of how much silicon it turns on at once and how wide a bus it is, so you have a high capacitive load, and a bus you need to keep synced. 

8 hours ago, Haswellx86 said:

@starsmine 

 

You are explaining data errors caused due to insufficient voltage for the clock speed. I was explaining degradation caused due to clock frequency which you denied.

 

The clock is what runs the CPU and drives voltage through the transistors. Higher clock frequency means the transistor switches more times in a period of time, contributing to the usual wear and tear and more thermal load and current also contributes in the usual degradation. But if the voltage is higher and especially beyond the safe limit, higher clock frequency will amplify the effects of higher voltage.

 

Because clock frequency is not a factor in degradation

[Haswellx86]

6 hours ago, starsmine said:

Because clock frequency is not a factor in degradation

You didn't even counter any of my arguments about clock frequency's involvement in degradation.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

14 hours ago, Haswellx86 said:

@starsmine 

 

You are explaining data errors caused due to insufficient voltage for the clock speed. I was explaining degradation caused due to clock frequency which you denied.

 

The clock is what runs the CPU and drives voltage through the transistors. Higher clock frequency means the transistor switches more times in a period of time, contributing to the usual wear and tear and more thermal load and current also contributes in the usual degradation. But if the voltage is higher and especially beyond the safe limit, higher clock frequency will amplify the effects of higher voltage.

 

I may not know all the technical names for all the modes of failiure but i know damn fucking sure clockspeed cannot degrade nor kill anything because im a damn overclocker and quite an elitist at that

 

ill just give an example with my hardware as thats a practical application of all this theory stuff cause theory =/= practice

 

Spoiler

Bottom photo is of the dimms though slightly innacurate as the configs above are for 4 sticks with 8gb of ram in dualchannel, the photo is showing my joke config with 10gb 4 sticks tri rank and dualrank respectively per channel @3150c13 with the same settings

 

Technicalities aside setup is hmt325u6cfr8c 2gb singlerank hynix 2gbit cfr spread across 4 sticks for 8gb total with rams rated at 1333 jedec running at 3200c13 @2.1v vdimm

 

Voltages are as shown in the screenie with the only thing actually in "safe" ranges according to the backward knowledge of the time being the vccin at only 2.2v though according to the official datasheet of the ic as seen here with an absolute maximum rating of 1.8v that 2.1v is pretty unsafe

 

Hammered it with prime95 largeffts for 9 days straight and its still stable even now and id know for sure if it degraded because the imc is already at its limit and any degradation would manifest in errors, ram hits its limit at 3300 for this given set of timings so id also know if it degraded as i have better cpus capable of hitting the 3300 mark stabily with these rams

 

Basically frequency doesnt do shit for degradation otherwise these would be dead by now given im running at well over 100% of their stock 1333 rating plus the high voltage albiet operating temp somewhere in the mid-high 40s as i run a fan or some sort of cooling on them due to instability at higher temps

 

The practical knowledge ive gained makes me very sure of this fact but as someone (usually) not stupid enough to fall into the trap of confirmation bias i can only be 99% sure, 100% certainty only once this factor is deliberately tested for which i have not but what i can be 100% certain is even if frequency degradation was a thing it would have such a minor impact that its virtually imperceptible even at ludicrous overclocks like what i do

[Haswellx86]

@Somerandomtechyboi

 

You can't measure degradation. If your system is still running fine for 9 days with high voltages, it has just managed to be fine.

 

You didn't mention how higher clock speed doesn't affect degradation, or I didn't clearly understand your language.

 

Higher clock frequency doesn't directly impact the degradation as higher voltage, but it accounts to that level of degradation of your voltage, over time. More speed, more transistor switching, more work, and also more current and thermal load.

[Blue4130]

16 hours ago, Haswellx86 said:

 

 

The clock is what runs the CPU and drives voltage through the transistors. Higher clock frequency means the transistor switches more times in a period of time, contributing to the usual wear and tear and more thermal load and current also contributes in the usual degradation. But if the voltage is higher and especially beyond the safe limit, higher clock frequency will amplify the effects of higher voltage.

 

But it isn't the clock that is killing the chip, it is the voltage. If the clock increses the speed at which it happens, it is still the voltage that is doing the killing, not the speed.

[Somerandomtechyboi]

2 hours ago, Haswellx86 said:

@Somerandomtechyboi

 

You can't measure degradation. If your system is still running fine for 9 days with high voltages, it has just managed to be fine.

 

You didn't mention how higher clock speed doesn't affect degradation, or I didn't clearly understand your language.

 

Higher clock frequency doesn't directly impact the degradation as higher voltage, but it accounts to that level of degradation of your voltage, over time. More speed, more transistor switching, more work, and also more current and thermal load.

Now define level as im getting the impression that level is the amount of degradation over time

 

From what im understanding you are insinuating that higher clocks causes more degradation over time say 4ghz at 1.6v only causes 100mhz of degradation at 1.3v from 3.8 to 3.7 but 5ghz at 1.6v causes 200mhz of degradation at 1.3v from 3.8 to 3.6 over x amount of time

 

My definition of fine and not degraded is the fact that it does and consistently does a certain clock + voltage + (for ram which is what i mostly oc) set of timings after a prolonged period of stresstesting and 9 days seems quite awhile for absolutely nothing not even a hint of degradation to have happened though i cant say its 100% safe till i either test long term or degrade some cpus and rams to make an exponential curve for expected degradation at lower volts but ill probably do a mix of both to accurately map out the curvature (inclination?) As testing for months or years on ancient platforms is just impractical atleast till i buy some psus and set up a bunch of testbenches

 

Surviving does not fully complete my definition of fine cause that dont mean jack shit if its degraded (for average bins ill just resell if unnoticable at stock or any reasonable overclock, absolutely avoid for best samples cause then i have to bin more), id prefer to avoid degradation if possible and usually thats the case despite the voltages i run (combination of old platforms and idiots that didnt know better back in the day setting far too low safe voltages) exceptions for when im deliberately testing degradation

 

As for high clock speeds mostly (if at all) not impacting degradation the proof is in my overclocks, theyre far higher than what a normie would ever even consider hitting let alone stabilizing and making a daily out of yet still show absolutely zero signs of degradation, i dont have any fancy terminology for how the gates oxidize and fail or what have you failiure methods but i overclock in practice and said practical overclocks have shown zero impact of frequency doing anything degradation wise

 

And yes degradation is measurable, my method isnt exactly perfect given the small sample size but if your previously tested stable overclock isnt stable anymore and has to be noticably lowered taking all other factors into account (even strange youd never think of like socket mounting which is a particular problem on x58 which neccesitates multiple tests across multiple mounts) then that classifies as degradation, noticable but usually quite small hence the need for multiple references samples etc. As you cant do this with just a single sample size if you want actual data out of it rather than an assumption

 

Though i will say the theory behind it does make logical sense just that theory =/= practice hence the need for testing rather than making claims that are only theoretically correct but do not (noticably) apply in the real world

 

example that ive found is literally variations in ram ics where ics like 2gbit cfr behave intuitively and degrade with voltage and (presumably) temperature like a regular cpu would but then theres ics like 1gbit g die that look to straight up not give a shit and not degrade even if i push it to the rather meager 2.6v max vdimm my x58a ud3r can set hence why i dont claim 100% certainty that frequency does absolutely zero towards degradation (lack of deliberate testing for this factor) but with the practical experience and data ive gathered from lots of ram ocs i can claim and be 100% sure that even if it does have an impact itd be so small it wouldnt even be noticable

[Haswellx86]

8 hours ago, Blue4130 said:

But it isn't the clock that is killing the chip, it is the voltage. If the clock increses the speed at which it happens, it is still the voltage that is doing the killing, not the speed.

Yes, that is what I have been saying. Voltage is the main culprit of degradation, but higher clock frequency will just make it take lesser time to degrade (and even more due to thermal and current load). So the clock frequency does play a part in degradation, but not directly as voltage.

 

6 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

My definition of fine and not degraded is the fact that it does and consistently does a certain clock + voltage + (for ram which is what i mostly oc) set of timings after a prolonged period of stresstesting and 9 days seems quite awhile for absolutely nothing not even a hint of degradation to have happened though i cant say its 100% safe till i either test long term or degrade some cpus and rams to make an exponential curve for expected degradation at lower volts but ill probably do a mix of both to accurately map out the curvature (inclination?) As testing for months or years on ancient platforms is just impractical atleast till i buy some psus and set up a bunch of testbenches

You still cannot directly measure degradation and with your stress testing, your system still might have managed to be fine. Degradation is a very slow processes. Either you degrade very slowly with voltage within in the limits, or really crank the voltages high to practically kill the CPU. I remember Jazy2Cents did a video where they were just flowing tons of voltage (above 2v on Vcore) but that didn't kill the CPU (or it might have, I don't remember).

 

6 hours ago, Somerandomtechyboi said:

And yes degradation is measurable, my method isnt exactly perfect given the small sample size but if your previously tested stable overclock isnt stable anymore and has to be noticably lowered taking all other factors into account (even strange youd never think of like socket mounting which is a particular problem on x58 which neccesitates multiple tests across multiple mounts) then that classifies as degradation, noticable but usually quite small hence the need for multiple references samples etc. As you cant do this with just a single sample size if you want actual data out of it rather than an assumption

I think that's true. You could find out about degradation if you can't hit those clocks at those voltages. Have you tested it?

 

I do understand what you are saying in that voltage is the thing that degrades and even kill the CPU but you need to understand that there will definitely be a difference between running at X voltage at 1 Hz (yes 1 Hz) and X voltage at 5 GHz. If you logically think and it makes sense, then it also makes sense to state that higher clock frequency does account to degradation. Faster degradation, not the peak effect of degradation. Voltage does the actual degradation, and clock frequency plays a role in how fast and slow it happens. But also remember that thermal load and more power does amplify degradation more.

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

Yes, that is what I have been saying. Voltage is the main culprit of degradation, but higher clock frequency will just make it take lesser time to degrade (and even more due to thermal and current load). So the clock frequency does play a part in degradation, but not directly as voltage.

But it doesnt. 

You are speculating, but there is no mechanism here for the clock to change it. 

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

I do understand what you are saying in that voltage is the thing that degrades and even kill the CPU but you need to understand that there will definitely be a difference between running at X voltage at 1 Hz (yes 1 Hz) and X voltage at 5 GHz. If you logically think and it makes sense, then it also makes sense to state that higher clock frequency does account to degradation. Faster degradation, not the peak effect of degradation. Voltage does the actual degradation, and clock frequency plays a role in how fast and slow it happens. But also remember that thermal load and more power does amplify degradation more.

You are talking about dynamic power. power is not what kills the chips. Voltages are what cause the breakdown of the physical material. 

Dynamic power is because the capacitive load has to charge/discharge (which the discharge is going into waste heat)

Note, that I'm not talking about intentional capacitors here. any two materials are capacitors irl. 

Dynamic power is not what is degrading chips. its if the capacitor is over charged (aka too much voltage) that you cause a breakdown of the dielectric border between materials causing it to either short or become permanently open, or really, have a resistance of an unintentional value causing voltages to not be at a predictable level to be usable.  

Capacitors are not measured in discharge cycles. 

[Somerandomtechyboi]

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

Yes, that is what I have been saying. Voltage is the main culprit of degradation, but higher clock frequency will just make it take lesser time to degrade (and even more due to thermal and current load). So the clock frequency does play a part in degradation, but not directly as voltage.

Now if it takes less time to degrade explain why my i7 930 refuses to degrade even when i run it up to that ddr3 3300 frequency mark at 1.77v vtt plus the overnight hammering it with prime95 largeffts at that voltage or 1.7v yet my w3503s seem to very quickly degrade in a matter of a few runs (15-30 mins) at high ddr3 3300 (3380-90) at 1.94v vtt

 

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

You still cannot directly measure degradation and with your stress testing, your system still might have managed to be fine. Degradation is a very slow processes. Either you degrade very slowly with voltage within in the limits, or really crank the voltages high to practically kill the CPU. I remember Jazy2Cents did a video where they were just flowing tons of voltage (above 2v on Vcore) but that didn't kill the CPU (or it might have, I don't remember).

If degradation was a very slow process i wouldnt have just gotten a 3400c11 screenie with my best chip and just dipped instantly after without even trying for higher nor would i have seen my dualrank cfr (hmt351u6cfr8c) minorly but noticably degrade in a matter of an hour after shoving 2.3-2.5v trying to make it stabilize 3000c11 from previous 2800 11-14-13 at 2.06v to 2800 11-14-15 at 2.1v

 

If it was as slow as you are describing even at high voltage + temp id be running north of 1.6v through my cpu cores quite casually with no regard for degradation and those w3503s would degrade the same way as my i7 930 (they dont)

 

The stable overclocks ive managed dont visibly degrade in the timespan of days as theyre (likely) safe and degrade so slowly that it wont be noticable for a decade or two, everything degrades but bone stock or safe takes decades to noticably degrade, its at the lower end of the exponential v/t curve so yeah no wonder why they basically dont degrade within their useful lifespan

 

1 hour ago, Haswellx86 said:

I think that's true. You could find out about degradation if you can't hit those clocks at those voltages. Have you tested it?

 

I do understand what you are saying in that voltage is the thing that degrades and even kill the CPU but you need to understand that there will definitely be a difference between running at X voltage at 1 Hz (yes 1 Hz) and X voltage at 5 GHz. If you logically think and it makes sense, then it also makes sense to state that higher clock frequency does account to degradation. Faster degradation, not the peak effect of degradation. Voltage does the actual degradation, and clock frequency plays a role in how fast and slow it happens. But also remember that thermal load and more power does amplify degradation more.

Refer to the testing with the dualrank cfr i pushed to 2.3-2.5v trying to stabilize 3000c11

 

The theory makes sense but in practice it doesnt seem to make any difference and practice is what i do with my overclocks

 

Given the logic above im getting the image of a linear curve where dropping from 5ghz to 4ghz would reduce degradation speed by 20% but that goes completely out of the window with both instances of degradation ive encountered

 

Thing is voltage + temperature is what contributes to how much it degrades over a certain time, its not just running 1.6v means it degrades 50mhz but it means it degrades 50mhz over x period of time and at that voltage its usually something like 50mhz in a few hours with temperature being at a fixed value which ill just assume to be 85c as 70c would probably slow it down to a day or more due to exponential curve

 

temperature has a much more pronounced impact at higher voltages but at lower voltages like 1v similar to what laptop cpus run they can have tjmaxes of 105 115c and still be fine running at that temp constantly 24/7 for decades though i cant say the rest of the laptop would be fine batteries boards chipsets and whatnot

 

id think of it like voltage is x² but temp is x^1+½T if i were to make a function to make a curve out of it, not accurate given this probably makes zero sense at subzero (less degradation and lower power/amperage due to less leakage which temp also affects) but you can get the gist of it

 

Seems quite clear to me that you straight up dont overclock or run mild overclocks which is usually where most people start theorizing or relying too much on theory (you and probably only a few people, good potential if you can test with scientific data based methods given you already looked at theory) or nonsense misinformation from other idiots (ex 1.35v vtt 32nm x58, majority of sheep ie idiots) and nuking their ocs in the process so if you want to get a better understanding of it you really need to get a hands on experience with overclocking and proper overclocks at that plus some deliberate degradation testing though youll probably want older hardware for this as theyre cheaper and see much more gain from overclocking