On Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:52:36 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> "Jeremy \"UncleHoot\" Praay" <jer### [at] questsoftwarecmo> wrote:
>> I was able to achieve 4.2GHz, but heat became a serious problem.  I was
>> using Prime95, and temps were approaching 80C.
>
>   I thought modern CPUs automatically throttle to lower clock frequencies
> when they get too hot.

They do, but the trigger temperatures are higher than that. I think  


The main reason for keeping the temperature below a much lower threshold  

even the parts of the CPU that are not close to a thermal sensor stay  




> Or does overclocking mean that you are actually bypassing that protection
> mechanism and forcing the CPU to run at a given frequency regardless of
> temperature?

No, but there are other things that can cause a CPU to fail (or even  
outright destroy it) when over-clocking, e.g.:

- Local overheating distant from a thermal sensor.
- Voltage drops.
- Excessive leakage current.



-- 
FE

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