** Official ** Gigabyte UD3 P45 Series -- EP45-UD3 / EP45-UD3R / EP45-UD3P

[LazyDogNet]

I'm on water with dual MCR320s, and I idle at 31c and prime and OCCT at about 40c. I wanted to run about 500fsb to nearly max my RAM, but like you, simply can't find a combination that keeps me under 1.35v Vcore at 4.25GHZ.

There are so many opinions about voltages that I'm not sure that to believe is OK when it comes to Vcore. Some say under 1.35v, some 1.40, and some 1.45v as long as the temps are OK.

It sounds like your system is alot better equiped to handle the high temps than mine (I'm just air cooled with Cool Master case, some 120mm case fans, and a ZEROtherm Zen FZ120 CPU Cooler). I believe I read on the Intel website a month or so back that the E8500 is rated to support voltage up to 1.3625V, but the absolute max is 1.45v. If that's really the case, than the 1.3725 I'm currently running isn't too far over the rated line.

I figure that even if I shorten the life of my CPU by (let's just say) 25% because I OC it, it should still run for another 5 years plus.....a E8500 CPU 5 years from now won't be much of a CPU anyway. Honestly, in almost 15 years of building computers, I've never lost a CPU (motherboards - yes, ram - yes, video cards - yes, power supplies - yes, hard drives - of course, but I've never just blown a CPU....maybe I've just been lucky).

I think the biggest concern is throwing just way too much voltage through the system that you actually fry something (either by your voltage settings or by maybe a bad PS). I was just reading one of the tech sites where they described how they pushed it too far and fried a $600 CPU...ouch! Luckily, I got a great deal on my E8500 and was even more fortunate to receive a E0 revision of it.....just dumb luck I guess.

Good luck to you and please post if you have any success bringing down the core voltage while keeping the speed up there.

LDN

BTW - Love the Wooden Case!!!!