Does overclocking affect the life of the CPU? Does it do any harm?

Question

I have a socket 478 which I overclock to 3.6 from a 3.2. Everything is going good. But will there be any harm done is it safe?

Answer 1

The last guy didn't really give you a good picture of it. First of all, you need adequate cooling. Overclocking causes the part to run faster, and hence produce more heat. If you do not have adequate cooling, it will damage the CPU very quickly.

Now as for long term, yes generally overclocking does reduce the lifespan of a CPU, even with adequate cooling. However, the expected lifespan of a CPU is something like 10 years, so even if life span is reduced by half, you still will most likely replace the CPU anyway before it breaks.

Answer 2

when computer hardware is pushed beyond its limits, it will lock up, crash or show other obvious errors long before it gets to the point where the processor or memory might be permanently damaged. The exception to this is if extreme voltages are used when attempting to overclock, but since most motherboards do not support extremely high voltages, it's not likely to be an issue.