Faster PC's Wearout Quicker?

[Trent]

I was preparing to help build a high end no profit PC for a friend
who's a first time PC buyer. Being a confused new buyer she sought the
advise of an "accredited computer expert" that advised her to avoid
high end PC's because they wear out quicker due to heat and stress and
recomended a much lesser Dell with integrated everything.

The homebuilt and the Dell would cost about the same but the
difference in performance would be substantial with 1 Gb RAM, high end
video, sound, MB, etc. in the homebuilt vs. integrated everything in
the Dell.

Has anyone ever heard of this myth that faster PC's wear out
quicker? It's sounds like hogwash to me. I did a quick Google search
and couldn't find anything to back up this claim except some
discussions about overclocking, which wouldn't be the case here.

I plan on printing up this thread for the "accredited computer
expert" to read ;-)

Thanks,
Trent

 

[Billy_Bat]

That's funny. I built a PIII 450, that I overclocked to 675, years ago. It's
still running, (I gave it to my mother in law for email, internet, and word
processing). That was when the PIII 450 was the new, fast cpu. About 5 years
ago or so. Same 10 Gb hard drive, 128 MB of crucial ram, Matrox G400 video
card.

My current system is an AMD XP 2100, 80 GB hd, 512 MB ram, Ti4200 (128 MB)
video.... yadda yadda. Been running it for a year. I run it extra hot,
because I like it quiet. PSU fan, and adjustable CPU fan, turned low except
when gaming. Probably almost as quiet as the Dell system, but can beat the
crap out of it... so to speak. (not to knock Dell, they are great machines
for what they are made for) Hope that helps!

 

[Don_B]

It's true BUT, it's probably not significant. The failure rate of solid
state devices is proportional to the cube of the operating temperature.
Devices that run hotter, i.e., faster processors, will fail sooner. However,
in real life terms, given the useful life cycle of computers, this isn't a
problem in the real world if reasonable steps are taken to keep the
processor from overheating. The processor will probably last longer than you
care to have it around. However, there is a random element in solid state
failures.

 

[jeffc]

I was preparing to help build a high end no profit PC for a friend
who's a first time PC buyer. Being a confused new buyer she sought the
advise of an "accredited computer expert" that advised her to avoid
high end PC's because they wear out quicker due to heat and stress and
recomended a much lesser Dell with integrated everything.

The homebuilt and the Dell would cost about the same but the
difference in performance would be substantial with 1 Gb RAM, high end
video, sound, MB, etc. in the homebuilt vs. integrated everything in
the Dell.

Has anyone ever heard of this myth that faster PC's wear out
quicker? It's sounds like hogwash to me.

It's probably either hogwash, or exaggerated to the point of being moot.
For example, maybe they do wear out faster. If it "wears out" in 20 years
instead of 22, is that going to be a problem? Generally, heat is one of the
things that shortens the life of electrical components. But hotter
components also have better heat sinks, and are also designed to run hotter.
It's probably a case of "technically true, but......."