[Solved] Q6600 OC-- Cooling quesitons; PSU concerns; Price/Performance

Hello,

I want to OC my Q6600 (Looking to get around 3.2Ghz out of it), but I have a few concerns I wanted to address and was hoping some of you could help me.

Here are my parts for reference:
Q6600 G0
GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L Mobo
CORSAIR XMS2 8GB (4x2GB) 5-5-5-18
VERTEX2 SSD
GTX 260
ANTEC EARTHWATTS 500W
ANTECSONATA III CASE

Right now all my cooling is stock, looking into purchasing the ZALMAN CNPS9900MAX-B CPU cooler.

1)Is my memory type reasonable for that level of OC?
2)Do I need a memory cooler too?
3)Should I upgrade the motherboard's heatsinks as well?
4)My PSU fan is dead, has been for at least a year, hasn't caused me any problems whatsoever. If I OC, would it be wise to replace the PSU?
5)I'm trying to get a bang for my buck. If I spend this money, will I get a reasonable performance return? Am I better off just saving towards a Sandy Bridge setup?


Thanks in advance.

Defo a change of PSU is needed, if the fan isn't working there is always a risk of overheat and risk of damage. I would suggest to purchase a new one asap. (Corsair make great PSU's btw)

I used the same zalman cooler on my old 775 rig, is a great cooler and should be able to handle to OC no, I ran a Xeon X3330 (a Quad 9400) at 3.5ghz no Problems granted it is a 45nm based quad but i don't think there will be that much difference.

As for the mobo cooling, i would see how to get along with just the Zalman, keep a close eye on the mobo temps i don't know if you case has side cooling or not? you can buy customer northbridge cooling i used a Thermaltake Extreme Spirit II which worked quite well.

Your Ram should be fine, however on 775 mobo's your overclock maybe limted as all you ram slots are full. (Might have to loosen the timings a tiny bit)

But please please change the PSU.

Thanks guys. I went ahead and picked up a Hyper 212 Plus.


Had to raise voltage quite a bit (from 1.26 to 1.49) to get it stable under prime95 @ 3.6Ghz, max temperature 67c (lower than my temps with stock cooler + stock clock speed!), a 50% overclock with a $30 cooler. I've reached the end of my overclock journey and I'm very pleased with the result!