Nehalem CPUs Shouldn’t Die Fast with High VDIMM

Last last week, we linked to a story that talked about supposed memory voltage limits with the Nehalem processor and its X58 chipset counterpart. This was all spawned by a warning that ASUS is sticking on their P6T Deluxe motherboards, clearly stating that it’s not recommended to go beyond 1.65v on the memory, as it can potentially damage your CPU.

Well, in talking to ASUS about the issue, I’ve found out that they’ve had no issue running that exact board in their labs with much higher VDIMM than what the warning label states… as high as 2.1v, whereas the supposed limit is 1.65v. Still, the issue remains, how long will the board or the CPU last with a higher voltage over time?

The recommended limit could become a problem in certain regards, although it’s too early to speculate. We do know that Intel themselves are going to recommend a lower memory voltage for use with the CPU, but what exactly would a memory high voltage do to the CPU? Nehalem does feature cutting-edge technology, after all. Surely the memory voltage plane is separate from the one that powers the CPU cores?

We’ll find out more soon enough, though. Rumored launch dates for Nehalem have been targeted at around mid-November, so it should be much earlier than that before we find out the true limits that the architecture imposes.