Quote Originally Posted by FlanK3r View Post
XLR:some SB chips are 5 GHz stable with good voltage (1.35V), of course, more of this can 5 GHz stable too, but with 1.45-1.55V. But dont forgot, SOI HK is diferent than Intels HK. I thinking, 1.45V at AMD will be still very safe for 24/7. More dangerous are temps than volts.
I think youre simplyfing it.As it all depends, in general all extremes are not healthy for a cpu.
For instance i had a A64 with only 1.2v passively cooled which was pretty much always at 60-70C, and its kickin to this day.However if you put 1.6v into a phenom II, even good watercooling wont stop it from deteriorating (if you keep it at this voltage constans and put a strain on it).
On the intel side its even worse, i OC`ed my friends core2duo xeon (65nm), it had big ass cooler which kept it at 50C max, however increased voltage deteriorated it in just a year, it was running 3.3ghz, now it barely does 2.3.

The key relation for me is median, between voltage and temperature, if i need extreme measures to cool a cpu, that means voltage is too high for 24/7 operation.Of course benching is another matter, as its just shorts periods of time of higher voltage/temperature.Anyhow, not one of my personal cpus broke or deteriorated keeping it all in some balance.

However getting back to BD, of course whats healthy and whats not, relation between temperature frequency and voltage it all will be determined later.
However if lets say retail BD is able to hit 5ghz stable 24/7 and Sandy is the same at this moment.Its ok, but not as good as i hoped.Its pretty much certain IPC of sandy is higher, so BD needs more clock.
I was under impression SB`s arent really hitting 5ghz fully stable, all i saw was cpuz screens, or 3dmark runs (thats on air).But you prolly know better.I didnt had the opportunity to build SB system yet.