Why Pentium 513

Mxsmanic

Well, migration is a thermal issue along with other 'not good' mechanisms (not all of which are completely understood) but 'it locked up' isn't an indicator. Well, other than indicating you're running at high temp and high temp accelerates those mechanisms ala the Arrhenius activation energy model (and others).

Unfortunately, no one outside the manufacturer knows what the numbers are so while one can say a processor will last longer at a lower operating temp it's anyone's guess how much longer or, conversely, how much operating at high temp degrades it. You can use the halving per 10C guesstimate but we don't know where the MTBF is starting at either. I mean, if running it at 50C instead of 70C cut MTBF down from 400 to 'only' a hundred years would you really care? (Not that I'm saying this is the case but that we don't know).

Thermal *cycling* is another significant failure stress mechanism that I mention only because it's one that deviates from the activation energy model and can throw the 'halving per 10C' guesstimate off in the other direction. (Note that even 'normal operation' induces thermal cycles from varying CPU loads)

It's also interesting to note that when speaking of ion migration texts will point out it can occur 'at modest temperatures of 100C', well outside our 'lock up' discussion, but maybe not outside an internal hot spot. And, of course, the Mil Spec temperature range goes to 125C.

Short version is I don't have a definitive answer ;)

Btw, another 'rule of thumb' is a 10C drop in temp gives a 2% speed increase.