Question about CPUs. (Warning: A stupid one)

[AmigaMance]

 Can a CPU (68k, PPC603) become slower by the passing of time, if it suffers from mechanical (bumps) or thermal stress?
 I'm not talking about the clock frequency, which will be always the same (i guess) but about the overall performance of that CPU.
 Well, i warned you that this is a stupid question, so be gentle. :-D

[Lando]

No.  A CPU either works or doesn't work, there isn't a degradation in performance over time like with mechanical items.

[Piru]

No

[Brian]

I'm not sure about the PPC family but the 68K family should not be able to do this... on a 86x it's theoreticly possible as some of those CPU's have a downclock feature when they are experiencing overheating so if the CPU is damaged in a way that over time makes it more and more prone to overheat during normal usage or even idling then I think this would be a theoreticly possible phenomina.

[Van_M]

A few months ago I read an article at register.co.uk in which Intel stated that certain CPUs from certain production lines (call me Celeron) become 10% to 15% slower after 5 - 10 years. It's somekind of semiconductor third-age, they said.
And I am able to verify this.
My brother bought a 466 MHZ Celeron pc back in 2000. Unsirprisingly it's performance sucked. Only 900 marks on 3dMark 2000 right after a clean intallation of windows with the latest drivers for graphics and sound.
6 years later I was called to format the hard drive and reinstall windows 98 because (unsurprisingly again) the old setup got seriously messed up. Again win98 , same driver set, 3dmark 2000.... guess what.... 762 marks!

My brother will need another computer pretty soon

[Piru]

Could you dig up link for that article?

[keropi]

I highly doubt this happens... 99.9999% this is BS
also the celeron benchmark , is it valid? he used the EXACT same setup/driver combo ? everything SAME version as the first one? Any new progs running in the background now? it is very hard to believe this "degrading as time passes"

[Van_M]

Could you dig up link for that article?

I tried to. I wasn't able to find it. I'll try some more tomorrow.

@keropi

I used the exact same setup. Same harware (except for a newer better hard drive), EXACTLY the same drivers no other applications installed except for 3dMark 2000.

[Piru]

There can be millions of reasons for system to slow down. I guess you could isolate it to CPU by trying known good identical replacement CPU?

Needless to say I'm a bit sceptical about this "CPU slows down by age" claim.

[Agafaster]

@Van_M,

I'm going horribly OT here, cos I saw your tagline. not heard it yet, but I have heard the new single on Kerrang!Radio - sounded pretty good, but me missus thought he sounded a bit...errm...female ! I'll put that down to the crappy reception in me car at the time !

[zombi]

I always felt that x86 CPU's tend to produce more heat and give lower performance after one-two years of heavy usage. But may be it is my expectataions that changes not the CPU itself.

[_ThEcRoW]

Cpu degradation? LOL!

[ppc4me]

Why not test with RC5 to isolate CPU performance?

[Piru]

@zombi

More like the cooler clogging up and/or failing.

More like games and apps requiring ever more crunch after couple of years.

:-)

[keropi]

if it was true, my 15+ year old 386sx would be an XT by now :lol: