trouble overclocking (P5B Deluxe, E6600, OCZ XTC 6400 2GB)

You are right, it is not that bad. 25% is quite nice. I do have a pet pieve of the memory that I paid extra for does not seem to be living up to its stated potential. maybe it is my settings, the mother board or even the memory itself.

I am trying to get all my parts locked into their top performing position. Not just the processor which will get bottlenecked if the rest of the system is performing poorly.

It seems my ignorance of how ASUS determines how it's motherboard reports memory settings is the real problem. After an OCZ tech told me that ASUS reports the memory PC#### value based on the multiplier I figured out tha: Any time I have it set to 1:1 it will report the memory as 266 * the Inverse of the memory setting * 2 = 533 or PC4300 or if I set it to 4:5 it will = 667 or PC5300 and if I set it to 2:3 it will = 800 or PC6400. This is regardless of the factual FSB overclock.

This means that I am actually getting my best performance from the memory, as when i am at 334 FSB my memory at 4:5 is equal to the real value of 835 which is quite acceptable. I now have vDIMM 2.1 and vCORE 1.325. Using ORTHOS I was able to get 2 hours of CPU and some Ram check and go 9 hours of CPU stress with no errors.

Next on my list is to tackle my video card. It will overclock to a swift 584/800, but using some morphing program, it overheats and shuts down. So I need to find its sweet spot.

Abandoning?
Not really. I am currently stuck at the 334 FSB speed due to temperature on the CPU which reaches 55C+ during ORTHOS CPU stressing. I know the CPU is rated for something like 60.1 degrees, but I also hear the higher the temperature the lower the overall life expectancy of the chip.

I am looking into some water cooling alternatives to allow me to get up towards the 3.6 and maybe even the 4.0. These are looking mighty expensive...

Looking at the:
MCP655 water pump $85
Resevior, not really going to be picky about this item. Plan to use 1 or two of them in the bottom one or two 5.25" drive bays. $10-$30
2x 80mm radiators (if they will fit side by side.) $27x2=$54
1x 120mm radiator. Might go with a 120x240+ if I decide to risk cutting up my nice Cooler Master Praetorian 730 case. $40 or $80 for two. Plus cost of equipment or someone to modify my case.
1/2 inch on all the fittings and hoses. $??
Then the water blocks. The P5B Deluxe/WiFi seems to have a descent NB cooler with its heat pipe setup, so I might leave that as is for now.
Would like to cool the
SB $20
CPU $25-$75
VGA $25-$75
$284 low ball estimate, and $454 at the high end. I think if I could get my cost down to $200 I might be able to swing it, if that $200 will buy me a significant increase in thermal heat dissipation for at least the CPU and the GPU and overall inside case temperature.

If you can help me pick some inexpensive but quality water cooling items, I might be able to justify it.

I tried lowering my vCORE once before, started at like 1.2000v then went up one step at a time. It would not post at all under the CPU baseline of 1.3250. Maybe it was some other settings, so i will give it a go when i get home. As for vDIMM, I can try those out a bit.

I keep reading on lots of forums that as speed increases you have to keep lowering temperature to stay stable.

Well, I found a reasonable water cooling kit from Alphacool at a price I can feel comfortable getting my feet wet, so to speak with.

My wife even seems excited to see me put it together.

Wouldn't you know it though, I was a bit too busy to do any reboots last night.