How much will "A little more performance" cost me?

[Witt78]

It has been a while since I have looked into PC hardware such as coolers. I'm not up to date on the best equipment these days...

Currently, I can easily overclock my Core 2 Quad (Q9450) from 2.67 Ghz, up to 3.4 Ghz. However, getting from 3.4 to 3.6 is where I have to start drastically boosting my voltages.

I need a little more cooling performance if I want to do this safely. So I just wanted your two cents.

I currently have an older Zalman cooler installed with AS5 compound. (My CPU is lapped down to a copper mirror btw.)

My heatsink is similar or identical to this one. ==> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118223

Now, I had my eye on this heatsink. It looks like a BEAST! But how much more performance will I really get??

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103057

I'm going to need to switch over to water cooling if I want to get this done, huh? Sux, cuz if I could get my Overclock up to 3.6 Ghz, that would put my FSB, DDR-2, and Video RAM all at a 1:1 ratio. hehe. (Tim Taylor Grunt goes here...)

 

[RJR]

You are going to see very little (if any) improvement with the 520 cooler vs what you have now. Lot of changes in coolers within the last couple of years. You may want to have a look here (any of the top 20 or so would be much better):

http://www.frostytech.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=2523&page=5

 

[Witt78]

Yeah, I've got some study time ahead of me.

I don't really want to put much more money into this gaming machine here.... But man! It sure would be nice to open up all the ratios to 1:1 so that NOTHING in my machine is being bottle-necked.

I'm looking over some of the coolers on the Frosty Tech page now. Beasts! Luckily my PC case is big enough to park a VW Beetle in.

 

[Raidur]

What kind of temps are you getting? How much further of an increase in voltages are we talkin?

Water is expensive, and it is doubtful the investment will be worth the gain.

 

[Witt78]

@ 3.4 Ghz with barely raised voltages, I'm running ABSOLUTE highest temp of 67C.

Most of the time I'm going to run like 63C.... That 67C was after an hour burn in on P95, and it was on my "Hot Core" (Idle I'm at about 48C) (Hot, but not too hot)

I think I'm just going to keep it at 3.4Ghz. Stock was 2.67Ghz, so I'm already pushing pretty far with a Core2Quad on air... it's a Q9450 too, they are known to run a little hot.