CPUs are still pretty durable but they can be a bit temperamental. With the smaller process sizes there's less voltage tolerance before degradation occurs. The

CPUs are still pretty durable but they can be a bit temperamental. With the smaller process sizes there's less voltage tolerance before degradation occurs. The X3D chips from AMD pack things supposedly pack the cache so tightly that it's easy to get into trouble A lot of chips burned out with something relatively mild like 1.3V on the SOC! That protection is fairly limited. There aren't enough sensors for everything that's heat sensitive. Reducing voltages/clock speeds also may not be enough to save all of those. Very long way to say: not that common... but decently. edit: As Paul mentions in a peer comment, this is largely due to the memory controller being moved onto the CPU.