processor aging

[javier.puche]

Dear all,

I am new to this forum, my name is Javier. I write because recently a guy from Intel told me that i5 processors age better than i3 ones, somehow i3 degrade faster and at some time spend a lot of power correcting errors. I found hard to believe, because it was the first time I heard something like that. I wanted to know if someone has benchmarked a very same cpu across several years of heavy usage finding different results.

Thanks for any hint. Best Regards,

Javier.

[duby229]

Well there are basically 2 things... 1: Errata. Processors are complex circuits and sometimes they have bugs. Those bugs are often fixed in microcode and you most likely will never see them. 2: Electromigration. Transistors leak current through the gate. This leaked current manifests itself as heat and magnetic field lines. That causes the gate to physically push away from the rest of the transistor, which effectively breaks it.

Neither errata or electromigration are big problems with I5.

Although I5 is Intels crippled version of I7, so it doesn't have the whole featureset.

[javier.puche]

Thanks for your reply, I learnt a lot (I did not know processors have error correction, and it must be great because I have never seen a broken processor - only overheated many many years ago) I guess then that core i3 suffers more electromigration than i5, is there any way to know how much electromigration affects different processors' families?

[duby229]

Thanks for your reply, I learnt a lot (I did not know processors have error correction, and it must be great because I have never seen a broken processor - only overheated many many years ago) I guess then that core i3 suffers more electromigration than i5, is there any way to know how much electromigration affects different processors' families?

Well, I wouldn't say I3 suffers more from electromigration. The thing is, it's an effect that happens due to high gate leakage. It doesn't matter if it's an I3 or I5 or I7. Any processor built on the same node will have the same chances to suffer from it. It's those particular setups that run for years at very high temperatures that are most likely to suffer from it regardless of branding.