Okay I can't take it anymore. I've been reading a lot on these wolfie cpu's and a lot of people are stating that 1.45v is the rated, safe max vcore temp for the wolfdales.

However, lots of hardcore enthusiasts have breached that by large margins to achieve extreme overclocking results. There's been people applying 1.6v on air, and above on water reporting no negative complications or regrets of doing so with proper cooling.

So lets narrow it down a little bit:

Intel States:

- 1.45v MAX vcore
- Rated Thermal Threshold: 72.4c
- Max Tj. 95c

Intel gives you for stock speeds:
- really small heatsink
- crappy paste.

Now I don't know how well the wolfdales do at stock, with stock hsf, in a normal case with normal temps. I'm assuming the cpu hits 60'esh on load, since the default hsf is very very small.

Now here is what has caught my attention:

- Why rate the thermal threshold at 72.4c when only rating max vcore of 1.45? I doubt the cpu would ever reach 72.4 on 1.45 unless you have some serious crappy cooling, or you throw your rig in the microwave/oven.

- Why a max Tj. of 95c when the cpu will never come close to even 72.4c on stock speeds, stock volts, stock hsf? that's a lot of headroom.

So I decided to do some extreme, risky tests to find out the truth. I honestly thing the rated max specs are bull-poo, so lets find out.

- No one can say "oh yeah i used over 1.45v on my wolfdale and it died in a year or two" because the cpu isn't that old yet.

- No one can state that the cpu will not last 5-10 years using over 1.45v, since once again, unless some one comes back from the future, it's all in the air as theory.

Okay now on with the tests.

WARNING! I DO NOT EXPECT ANYBODY TO ATTEMPT WHAT I HAVE. ALL WARNINGS AND RISKS HAVE BEEN TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION. I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYBODY ATTEMPTING OVER 1.53V ON YOUR WOLFDALE UNLESS YOU HAVE EXTREMELY GOOD COOLING!

If my cpu burns, I won't make a huge deal. I accept the risks.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Test one: Thermal-Threshold

Okay so if the wolfie breaches 72c it's suppose to declock itself and its volts to prevent damage, right? We've seen this behavior in previous intel cpu's such as the prescotts or "preshotts". I enabled TM2 in my bios and applied 1.6v to my e8400 to attempt to sustain 4.43ghz on orthos.

Temps went as high as 77c, with no sign or report of thermal-throttling. CPU-Z didn't show any declock, or any voltage drops.

well, guess that isnt' the actual thermal threshold then.

Test Two: CPU High Temp Auto Shutdown

Later Intel cpu's shut themselves off once they reach a certain temperature. With a max Tj. of 95c and a rated thermal threshold of 72c, i would assume the cpu would shut down around 75c'esh but it did not, with TM2 enabled or disabled.
With TM2 disabled, the max temp I saw my cpu jump to was 86c and that was too close for comfort for me. So I backed off.
My best record for orthos is around 20 min's but decreasing my northbridge voltage has shown greater stability with orthos. My goal is to reach 2 hours with 1.5-1.6v 4.43ghz. Temps at load are bouncing between 74c and 77c.

So What's the deal? i mean sure, at those temps a wolfdale would probably not last in life for years to come, but who is going to have a wolfdale 3-5 years from now anyways? no one, unless you live in thailand or some other primitive country (technology wise).

PLEASE DO NOT COMPARE THESE RESULTS WITH AMD CPUS. AMD CPUS HAVE ZERO TOLERANCE TO HEAT DUE TO THE ONBOARD MEMORY CONTROLLER AND CURRENTLY, AMD IS VERY FAR BEHIND WITH TECHNOLOGY.

I'm looking for feedback from people who have really pushed the wolfdales. Please keep all comparisons with Core2duo e8xxxx WOLFDALE CPUS ONLY!

Thanks