Overclocking and Aftermarket Coolers

[Foyboy543]

Hi all,

I'm planning to build a new computer soon (was going to do it this month but those damn hard drive prices...) and I have a couple of questions about overclocking. I'm going to almost certainly be buying the i5 2500k.

1. Is voiding the warranty on the cpu by attaching a new cooler a big deal? That is, do intel processors fail within 3 years often enough to warrant worrying about the warranty?

2. What is the (conservative estimate) range for overclocking speeds that doesn't require an increase in voltage?

3. Can the range from question 2 be safely achieved with the standard stock cooler?

Thanks

[glc]

1. Your choice.
2. Each individual processor will respond differently.
3. No. The stock cooler is marginal at stock speeds with turbo enabled.

Why do you feel you need to overclock?

[Foyboy543]

Hey glc,

Overclocking will be necessary for my gaming. I'm big into console emulation, which is CPU-intensive. Around 4GHz is necessary for full-speed emulation.

[David M]

Why do you want to emulate the relatively poor graphics of a game console when you have a PC that can get you much better graphics with a half decent graphics card and a CPU that does not need to be overclocked?

To answer your question, an i5 can be overclocked pretty far with a decent aftermarket CPU cooler. It would be hard to invalidate the warranty of an Intel CPU by burning it up since they throttle themselves back at high temps.

[Foyboy543]

Hi Dave,

I suppose it's because I think that console games from the late 90's and early 00's are much more enjoyable than most modern PC games, and I'd like the ability to play them at higher resolutions, with the ability to save state, and with the ability to play translations/imports. Also, my PS2/GC are on their last legs, and my game collection has been scratched and dirtied over the years, so the ability to play backups on the PC is highly desirable.

Also, it's not as if I can't also play PC games on a PC that can emulate consoles. I just would like the ability to do both, with a priority placed on console emulation.

Edit: Also, it's my understanding that an Intel CPU's warranty is invalidated just by attaching the non-stock cooler. If that's not the case, then my entire thread here is rather pointless :$

[David M]

The warranty is invalidated but Intel will never know and cannot detect it... and many many people buy an aftermarket cooler and overclock anyway. It really is a very common thing to do plus CPU's rarely fail compared to the failure rate of other computer components.

[Foyboy543]

Alright thanks Dave! That's the response I was looking for.