Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I'm doing my science fair project on the effects of overclocking the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in computers. I can personally test overclocking's effects on performance, temperatures, and stability but I don't know how to test the effects on longevity. If I had five or ten years to do the project I could see the average time to failure compared to a non-overclocked GPU, but I don't. Does anyone know a way to quickly test this or know data that will show how much of a silicon chip's life-span is lost from running higher voltage threw and increasing the clock multiplier of the GPU?

Hi richardaf,
I am sorry about this but I am afraid I am going to give you an engineering answer: "It depends" Specifically, it depends on the particular GPU hardware spec and also the voltage / overclock level. The main issue is the temperature and the old rule of thumb is that for 10 C increase in temperature above the hardware specified maximum, the likelihood of the component failing is roughly doubled. However, most of the modern GPU have "smart protection" that would automatically throttle or shutdown to prevent damage so this rule doesn't really apply as much.

At any rate, here's a link for an article on the old rule of thumb that may be of some help:
https://www.electronics-cooling.com/201 ... nics-half/

Good Luck with your experiment and please post again if you have any other questions!
Willey

Tank you.