Our test bed is a Gigabyte X48-DS4 with 2 x 2,048 MiByte DDR2 memory. The latter one always is synchronized to the FSB clock ratio and works with the timings 5-5-5-18-2T.

For the overclocking we set a practical limit for the CPU voltage. The Vcore of the 65 nanometer processors (Q6600/E4700) is set to 1.425, which results in a load voltage below 1.4 volt. The 45 nanometer CPUs are set to 1.325 volt only.

Both values are usable 24/7 without any problems. The durability of the processors is not noticeably harmed. With some processors we are not that careful and overclock them regardless of the consequences: To get the E8600 at 4.5 GHz we power it with 1.5 volt, the E5200 even needs 1.55 volt to be stable at 4.0 GHz. Those high voltages can be endured for a short period of time, but long-term usage would end in the destruction of the processor - no matter how well the cooling solution is working.