I'm not sure how much this tells us. I overclocked my system to the point where it crashed, then dialed it back from there to the point where it was stable while running IntelCpuBurn for ten minutes. I'd be surprised to find any overclocker who hasn't crashed his computer at least once during the overclocking process.
What myth is supposedly being shattered here, by the way?
What myth is supposedly being shattered here, by the way?
Besides the obvious statement that ExtremeTech is a god-awful blog that loves to write incorrect statements and editorialize, I would say there are three main "myths" being "shattered" just from reading Microsoft's paper:
1. Myth: Desktops are more reliable.
2. Myth: Custom systems are more reliable than OEM systems
3. Myth: A stable overclock is stable.
On 1, the article speaks for itself. Laptops clearly show fewer failures in their data. Same with 2. On 3, you have to read between the lines, where they state "Even absent overclocking, faster CPUs become faulty more rapidly than slower CPUs." With that in mind, it's easy to see that even when you find a stable overclock speed, your hardware will crash more often even without taking into effect the crashes caused by finding this stable speed and without necessarily inferring that overclocks themselves cause hardware issues. However, their conclusions show "even small degrees of overclocking significantly degrade[s] machine reliability, and small degrees of underclocking improve[s] reliability over running at rated speed."
Microsoft is just putting this data out there in an academic journal, they make no recommendations or assumptions. They certainly don't make the claim that enthusiast myths are being shattered. That analysis is all on the side of ExtremeTech.
What myth is supposedly being shattered here, by the way?