actually in my case and many others, we over clock because we want the best performance possible, mind you a lot of us here at techforums, have kick @$$ computers, but we still overclock our chip to it's limit. We do it for the pleasure of overclocking and because we have to mess with stuff, because "stock" just isn't right for us!, and the actually overclocking isn't what hurts a chip, i'm pretty sure it's the increase in voltage amount. A processor call last up to like.. 20 years probably, now a days i'd say most chips last like 10 years, but overclocking your chip doesn't decrease the total lifetime amount as much as you'd think, you'd probably loose up to 5 years depending on how far you pushed it (voltage and all)... therefor you'd still have your chip for 5 years, which everyone but the hobo around the corner would have upgraded by then.