Overclocking potential of a system

Very good! Two things could be changed:

The PSU. Get the Corsair HX620, it is the best overall.
The CPU Cooler: Get the Tuniq Tower 120, the Zalmans have had varied opinions with overclocking in the past. The Tuniq is def the best.

Thanks a lot - that information is very useful! I'll keep that in mind, and save some money on the AS5. I appreceiate it! No, I won't be going anywhere _near_ 4GHz, I just want to give my system a bit of an edge without doing anything too... drastic, lol As for the Corsair 620, I'll take that under consideration and edit the front post to update that information.

I just built a somewhat similar system, see my signature. Also a risk-averse first time overclocker. Upped the FSB to 333 for a CPU speed of 3GHz. Haven't done much testing as such, but played some games. Not a problem. Other settings:

CPU voltage raised to 1.375
Memory overvoltage of 0.15
Memory multiplier of 2.5 (yields 833MHz)

I have no idea whether the above was even necessary. I read belatedly that the (or at least some) C2D overclocks to 3GHz with no overvoltage. The above represents a mild 0.05V CPU overvoltage.

My reasoning behind this overclock is that everything but the CPU is running within spec. The rev. 3.3 Gigabyte MBs are designed for 333 x 4 = 1,333 FSB or at least the DS4 is. The memory is only very slightly overclocked. Actually mine is rated at DDR800 4-4-4-4-12 @ 2.1V, however motherboard auto-detected it as DDR666 5-5-5-5-18 and @ (I believe) 1.8V. It seems you need to reconfigure manually to get the memory to it's rated setting, otherwise it will default to "very very safe mode".

I recommend getting the Intel Thermal Analysis Tool (TAT.EXE). Apparently Conroe has 3 heat sensors, 1 on each Core and one in the casing, between the Cores. The Gigabyte overclocking program only seems to read out the 3rd sensor, which is some 10-20 celsius lower than the actual core temperatures. Conroe seems to do the 3GHz overclock with ease. Temperatures are a few degrees higher at that speed, but still remain in the mid 50s at load.

yeah, shin etsu in general i hear is really good TBH (but fairly difficult to apply, moreso than AS5). as far as AS5, im just concerned they didnt do a complete preperation for using it (clean surfaces thuroughly, reapply and smooth out very thin layer of paste over heatsink to fill in gaps on surface, wipe surface, use minimum amount of AS5 on cpu, let set for ~200 hours, with system both on and off for expanding and cooling phases, and then regular system use afterwards)... basically, if they didnt test it for a week like that, and guage results each day, the results they came up with are most likely 'incomplete'... the end result though is still only going to be a few degrees difference either way

with most normal thermal pastes though, thats not necessary, you just put it on, and youre done, lol

Shin Itzu was very easy to apply and cool exceptionally well I recomend it highly I have a 9700 with shin itzu 3.3 ghz 36c idle and 40c load

Did I say something wrong these are things I know from using the product. It is a little thick but it gave me absolutly no problems. I used the Shin Etsu X23-7783D http://www.ajigo.com/prod_detail.p [...] alMgmt.php

Oh OK cool I saw the review for that grease on these forums I built my computer for the most part from all the fine people on here I researched for 8 months the only thing I picked myself was the motherboard but I'm overall happy with the purchase. I saw on egg that gigabyte put out a DQ6 680i board but it dissapeared from there site after about a week and I haven't seen it on there since. It was a sweet looking board but pricey have you heard anything about that. Maybe a new thread?