temp limitations and benchmark procedure

[atronox]

hello there,
first of all: i'm new to this forum and hope people from austria are as well welcome as my occasional bad spelling or my greenness for it is my first sandy bridge build

i recently assembled a new system, which is running stable @ 4,5ghz, and now have a few questions for i'd like to max it out. would be obliged, if you could help me or at least give me a few hints...

- what should be the max temps for i7 2600k without ruining the cpu in a long term? at the moment (see signature) my cpu temp ranges from 39-40°c with core temps between 55°c and (rarely peaking out at) 63°c (benchmarked with aida64). are these values actually ok? => i'm planning to stick to this system for approx. 2 years, if possible...(with minor changes of course).

- how do i "securely" find out what frequency my cpu is capable of?

- can you recommend a concrete benchmark procedure? how long should i run aida64, 3dmark vantage, prime, etc. for a reliable value? particularly in which sequence?

thanks in advance and greets from vienna!

[Six Foot Ginger]

wow there is allot to say here

that part will start to step down clock speed at 80 C so keep it under that temp, If its in the 60 C range under full load for a long time that's just fine.
If you want to make the part last, put the voltages back to stock. Voltage kills CPUs
plug in your batch number off of the box or your CPU and there will be link telling you roughly what that batch is capable of OC wise.

Run each of those for say two hours each and let it prime for a day. If nothing fails that system is rock stable.