I feel as though yes there can be processor degradation but from what i heard most of the dead CPUs were from too much BLCK, which I still don't quite understand. Now in the past Intel recommended 1.375v for bloomfield and then vabsolute was 1.55v. Now I don't understand why intel has to publish a datasheet and just say VID upto 1.52v. From what i take with that is if you keep voltage at auto vid will change upto 1.52v when processor is OCed to a very high frequency like 5-5.2ghz. i have actually seen my VID goto 1.475v at 5.2ghz. i did see voltage degradation from 1.53v and then the week after i needed 1.56v and then 1.58v, now that was at 5.2ghz on a D1 stepping chip. i did make note of it in my article, those are with LLC added. From what i saw was that the temperatures on air were very high at auto, and it is well known that heat and voltage will kill a chip. From talking to a lot of people I have gathered that they do not just die because of nothing, extreme overvolting and heat can result of the death of any chip. Companies like MSi that have published OCing guides have stated that high voltage is 1.55v. Now i understand that 1.5v is a lot to fathom for a 32nm chip, but heck so is 5+ghz.

it does seem like retail chips are much weaker than initially thought, their average OCes are not 5ghz, more like 4.5-4.8.