IDF Taipei: Independant memory Voltage
Despite everything we've heard so far, it seems like Intel hasn't implemented a Voltage limitation on the Core i7 processors, nor on the memory and the two aren't linked to each other. We've heard reports of some boards reaching 2.2 or even as much as 2.4V on the memory, so those of you out there with high-performance DDR3 memory have nothing to worry about.
Furthermore, it seems like the 1.65V limitations for the Core i7 CPUs is a safety precaution, as the CPUs are unlikely to die straight away if you go beyond this, but it will shorten the life span of the processors. Intel doesn't really seem to know at what Voltage the life span will be severely shortened and the 1.65V limit is a blanket safe zone so that people don't end up frying their processors.
Turbo Boost will not modify the CPU Voltage and it even sounded like there's no need to tweak the CPU Voltage for the average overclocker and that this is something that would only be needed to be done by extreme overclockers and the Intel people we spoke to sounded very pleased with the overclocking results of the Core i7 processors.
It's still about a month to go before anyone will be able to get their hands on the new CPUs and actually start frying them, but we have a feeling that most people won't be having any issues, especially as there's no correlation between the CPU and memory Voltage with should please a lot of people that have been thinking about upgrading to the new platform.
