Quote:
Originally Posted by mudd

just keep your temps really low. around 55c. it doesn't matter how much voltage you really put to it as long as it stays cool.
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I would have to disagree with you there.
The reason CPU's tend to fail is due to electron migration. Voltage is the flow of electrons from a point of high concentration to a low concentration. As the electrons pass through the CPU core they travel through lanes. As the voltage is increased the force that these electrons have is increased. With increased energy they bombard the pathways slowly etching until they break through the lane and into an adjacent lane causing failure of this section of the core architecture. If this happens sufficiently you get total failure of the CPU. This is electron migration.
The temperature also has a similar effect. With increasing temperature the electrons gain extra momentum giving a similar effect as stated above but also can lead to physical scorching of the core and die.
This is why for instance, sudden northwood death syndrome (SNDS) happens on the older Intel cpus (and others in fact).
You can have great temperatures but if the volts are too high that can kill it also. (I know this from personal experience)
Therefore to summarise it is a combination of voltage and temperature that effect the the lifespan of a CPU.