Core i7 Overclocking by Batch #

[JakFrost]

I can just say one thing. Invest in a really really good cooler and call it a day if water cooling is not for you. for example a TRUE with high flow fans in push and pull. You can hook up the fans to a controller so that you can turn them down and enjoy from a quite PC. If you want to do some benches or what not, you can turn them up and enjoy a bit of benching. Can't go wrong with that.

I hear you and you have a nice setup from what I see. The thing is that I am just not convinced that water cooling is a worthwhile endeavor for me because I do not get the thrill from benching or overclocking anymore. Back in the days I was happy to push my system and get nice benches but as I started using the computer more I want more features and software and I am not too concerned about speed. Due to this I cannot justify the expense and effort of setting up water cooling on my system when the clocking rewards will be so small.

Of course I like to run my favorite games like STALKER with smooth frame rates but the hell of a nightmare that my DFI nForce4 motherboard and AMD Opteron 175 gave me now make me want to ensure absolute consistency, stability and reliability from my system more than slightly higher clocks on a system that would flake out on me.

Due to these facts I am going to try and stick to air in my system and optimise the setup I have with my cooler. I might by another fan to mount it on the other side to give it a push and pull config but I do not want to switch heatsinks because I don't think that a different one will give me any significantly better thermal reduction than the four heatpipe with direct contact on that I have now.

I just hope that I don't find out that I got another gimped chip with my batch that only is BLCK stable below 200. But even if that is the case then I will still keep this CPU even at the 3.6 GHz I was able to reach since a different batch will get me to maybe at 3.8 GHz before the thermals get out of control.

I will play with the system when I come back after the weekend. Posting from the road.