Ron Schenone

Overclocking Dimms Could Damage CPU Says Intel

Posted by on Oct 9, 2008 | 3 Comments

Intel is warning consumers who overclock the DIMM voltage over 1.65v, that they could damage their new Nehalem CPUs. According to the web site Custom PC Intel has asked motherboard manufactures to warn consumers of the possibility when voltages exceed the 1.65v recommendation. It appears that some companies like Asus are ignoring the warning and are placing consumers at risk. According to the article it also states that:

The warning was revealed when XFastest published some photos of the retail-packaged Asus X58-based P6T Deluxe motherboard. In the photos, the DIMM slots are covered by a sticker (pictured) reading: ‘According to Intel CPU spec, DIMMs with voltage setting over 1.65V may damage the CPU permanently. We recommend you install the DIMMs with the voltage setting below 1.65V.’

However, the article goes on to state that Asus has not limited the voltage overclocking in the BIOS, leaving consumers with the option to ignore the warning. I am sure we are all aware that if a CPU is damaged by over clocking, the manufacture may void the warranty.

So consider yourself warned. :-)

Comments welcome.

Source.

  • George

    its been big news in the overclocker community for the past few days, a lot of people are pretty upset. although, asus has said its been able to get up to 1.7 volts, which is pretty good. still, if people want to go insane and overclock their ram to 2000mhz, the voltage will have to be like 1.8, which will no doubt damage your cpu. so yeah, people are upset. I’m sure there will be a way around it, like to offload the memory controller in the processor to the northbridge… either way, its pretty bad news for the community.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi George,
    Thanks for he information. It should be interesting to see what happens.
    Later, Ron

  • Angelo Alfredo Canino

    The advice you should be handing out is to get readers to go to the FCC website and file protests. If the FCC approves AT&T’s acquisition of T-Mobile this will be a nail in the coffin of unlimited data plans. These limited bandwidth plans are not to benefit users but for the wireless carriers to add to their bottom line. Nothing more. Encourage every reader and protest against the T-Mobile acquisition. If consumers can stop it here and Sprint/Nextel and AT&T still follow suit with limited plans we then protest against their application to put these plans into effect. The FCC has allowed the reinstatement of the monopoly the carriers held by AT&T and General Telephone (now Verizon). Protest! Protest!