How do i know if my i7 Processor is degraded?

That's because it's not really setting your BCLK to 125. It's using the 1.25 CPU strap, that looks like a BCLK overclock when you look at CPU-Z, but it's not. The BCLK is still running at 100MHz. Think of CPU Strap more like a CPU + Memory combo multi

Yes, I kind of knew that, i.e. I knew that one can change the CPU Strap and that ends up changing the displayed BCLK value.  Tis a wee bit confusing to me though so thanks for that.   Interestingly, this has been easiest to work with for o/c.  I follows ASUS JJ's video guide and couldn't really improve on this basic starting point.  So now if I want to go for more o/c i've just increased Vcore slightly as needed and changed the CPU multiplier, and CPU load line calibration if needed and all seems simple and w/ good results.  I'm real pleased w/ 4.443 Ghz though so may only bump up a little more than this just for fun sometime.  I think I must have a decent CPU & its memory controller must be decent since I'm on a hexacore processor and can run my memory at 2357Mhz.  I'm assuming I could play w/ timings and get 2400Mhz since the ram is rated 2400, but I know it will no perceptible difference, so why bother.