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I think my CPU is degrading! Please help!

I used to be able to undervolt my i7 6800K with a -0.09 volt offset when I bought it about a year ago, but then it became unstable, so I have to now use a -0.075 volt offset to keep it stable. It also used to be able to score around 1,250 in Cinebench, but it now only scores 1,200. The frequency of the RAM and CPU is also the same. I did not think that computer hardware degraded gradually like that. I thought it either worked or didn't work. I am not sure why it would degrade. It was always water cooled with a custom loop, so therefore always runs very cool, it was never overclocked, and not usually ran very hard. Maybe it needs extra voltage for another reason, but I think it is slowly degrading. Please help!

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Hmmmm. Could just be becoming more power hungry over time. You might call that degrading, but I don't think it's super serious. I completely understand your concern, especially because that's an expensive processor.

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Just now, spacehamster said:

maybe its thermal throttling 

I don't think so:

6 minutes ago, lexidobe said:

 It was always water cooled with a custom loop, so therefore always runs very cool, it was never overclocked, 

 

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1 minute ago, spacehamster said:

maybe its thermal throttling 

The temp never exceeds 60 degrees, so it is not temp related.

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overtime the silicon's quality is degrading and thus requiring higher Voltages to run stable, also the stock TIM between the die and IHS also looses a bit of cooling performance which causes higher temps over time and thus tends to lead to (more) instability

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I'd say just give it the proper voltage it needs to sustain the lifetime of the chip, because you're only saving a little bit of power and saving a little bit of heat.

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Just now, Tiwaz said:

overtime the silicon's quality is degrading and thus requiring higher Voltages to run stable, also the stock TIM between the die and IHS also looses a bit of cooling performance which causes higher temps over time and thus tends to lead to (more) instability

The silicon degrading is possible, but there is no TIM between the die and the IHS. It is soldered.

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6 minutes ago, lexidobe said:

The silicon degrading is possible, but there is no TIM between the die and the IHS. It is soldered.

the bigger intel cpus are soldered, u right ?️

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37 minutes ago, lexidobe said:

The temp never exceeds 60 degrees, so it is not temp related.

Stability is temperature related so maybe it went 1-2c up over time and even that can bork clocking up or down. Maybe try dusting your rads.

.

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I wouldn't consider your Cinebench score valid unless you tested it on a clean system again in order to eliminate any software variables that have built up over the computer's lifetime.

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5 hours ago, Emberstone said:

I wouldn't consider your Cinebench score valid unless you tested it on a clean system again in order to eliminate any software variables that have built up over the computer's lifetime.

I just reinstalled Windows a few days ago and the Cinebench score was the same after the reinstall. But I just re ran Cinebench and I got 1,185. It doesn't make sense that performance would degrade gradually like that though. Linus tested a new and old GTX 480 and found that they perform the same. 

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7 minutes ago, lexidobe said:

I just reinstalled Windows a few days ago and the Cinebench score is the same after the reinstall. It doesn't make sense that performance would degrade gradually like that though. Linus tested a new and  old GTX 480 and found that they perform the same. 

Exactly something else is not right 

6 hours ago, lexidobe said:

I used to be able to undervolt my i7 6800K with a -0.09 volt offset when I bought it about a year ago, but then it became unstable, so I have to now use a -0.075 volt offset to keep it stable. It also used to be able to score around 1,250 in Cinebench, but it now only scores 1,200. The frequency of the RAM and CPU is also the same. I did not think that computer hardware degraded gradually like that. I thought it either worked or didn't work. I am not sure why it would degrade. It was always water cooled with a custom loop, so therefore always runs very cool, it was never overclocked, and not usually ran very hard. Maybe it needs extra voltage for another reason, but I think it is slowly degrading. Please help!

A stock cpu under water should literally last 20 years lol.  Idk what is going on with the system but I can say that it isn't the cpu degrading 

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Just now, Jumper118 said:

Exactly something else is not right 

A stock cpu under water should literally last 20 years lol.  Idk what is going on with the system but I can say that it isn't the cpu degrading 

I wonder if my CPU was not damaged when the VRMs on my X99 Deluxe went up in smoke. I would think that if it was damaged it would not work at all though. 

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3 hours ago, lexidobe said:

I wonder if my CPU was not damaged when the VRMs on my X99 Deluxe went up in smoke. I would think that if it was damaged it would not work at all though. 

CPUs are sensitive beasts. Perhaps but a mere spike in volts caused slight damage or additional wear within certain components of the processor, causing instability.

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5 hours ago, lexidobe said:

I wonder if my CPU was not damaged when the VRMs on my X99 Deluxe went up in smoke. I would think that if it was damaged it would not work at all though. 

Thar would be a safe assumption.

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