You really need to list your entire system specs. Your motherboard, for example, is a very big factor in overclocking Phenoms.
There are basically 3 types of Phenoms, forget what you hear about 965 vs 955 vs 980. The chip itself, the die:
Deneb C2 Revision: 4 core, guaranteed to get 3.6-3.8ghz, will require extreme voltage and luck to get a single mhz over 3.8
Deneb C2 Revision: 4 core, slightly improved IMC, guaranteed to get 4-4.2ghz, will require extreme voltage and luck to get anything above 4.2.
THuban E0 Revision: 6 core, improved IMC, guaranteed to get 4-4.2ghz.
CPU-Z, and other hardware programs, will tell you what revision you have.
Max voltage is 1.55 (you can go higher, but you really don't want to, 1.55 is already really pushing the envelope, 1.6v is the limit if you got great cooling, motherboard, and definitely okay with a little degradation and being harsh with an old gen chip).
Max temp is 62*C but you encounter instability from temps at 55*C, so the practical temp limit becomes 55*C. The problem isn't hitting 55*C though, so if you stress test, and come back to see a peak temp of 58*C, that's okay, as the problem is 55*C causes crashes generally.
You would notice a huge increase in performance with an overclocked Phenom. Hopefully you have a C3 revision (not all 965's are c3, but most are), in which case you should be able to get 4ghz on a relatively low amount of voltage, and hopefully get a little more with around 1.4-1.49v.
You definitely need at least a mid-range cooler for the job, the Antec Kuhler or a similar cooler would perform well. Closed loops, and especially the 620 though, tend to be a bit overpriced. I'd recommend you look into buying a used or discounted cooler instead - with coolers it's not about what cooler you get, it's about the price you pay for the cooling performance.
There's a lot of really bad advice in this thread. It really depends on your chip - if you are lucky, you can hit 4.2ghz@1.388vcore and you don't need anything more than a hyper 212+. Most likely though, you'll really need at least mid-range cooling for a Phenom ii X4.
High end cooling will allow you to push ridiculous extra voltages and get into the land of extremely diminshed returns, ie .8v extra for only 50-100mhz kind of thing. If you are that kind of overclocker, like me, then you'd want high end cooling, as there is definitely a sweet spot (or depending on how you look at it, a brick wall) on Phenoms, as opposed to Intel which just scales up and up and up with voltage.
But mid-range should be enough for a good 3.8/4ghz overclock. If you go with a closed loop, I strongly recommend you buy some fans for it (just some cheap yate loons). Unlike air, closed loops/water really appreciates additional fans.
And, all coolers under $70 come with crap fans. I would not recommend you get an nh-d14 or frio though - the Phenom is a budget chip. You buy an nh-d14 if you got like an i5 or i7, not a phenom. Unless you can find one on sale or budget (for example, I bought my nh-d14 when I had a phenom system, but that was because I found it on ebay for $43).
I've heard air coolers aren't the best for overclocking?
There's a lot of misinformation on tomshardware forums, so be careful about what you hear.
Air coolers are fine for overclocking. 'Closed Loop', aka "All in One Water Cooling', etc., are not true water cooling. Real water cooling is custom loops, which have a radiator (heatsink thing), tubing, a block (mount), a pump, and a reservoir.
In closed loops like the Antec Kuhler 620, H100, H50, etc, the pump is built into the cpu block, and there is no resevoir. That's why closed loops perform more like air cooling, than real custom water cooling - they don't have as much water in the system, to dissipate the heat.
How well water cooling cools, is not just about the size of the radiator - it's about the size of the tubes (they can hold significant amounts of water, for example, the old H50 with it's corrugated tubes, outperformed the much bigger H70 in apples to apples, because of this), the radiator (how large it is, and how many fins per inch it has), the reservoir (the more water the system has, the more it can cool, which is why closed loops are nothing like real water cooling), and the pump (to a lesser degree, you just want to move water).
Closed loops like the 620, are called 'fake water cooling' because they are nothing like the real thing. As in, a cheap, budget custom water loop, which will be at least $180 by the way, will be about 10*C cooler than the H100. Bear in mind that 10*C cooler is like the temp drop you get from an H100 or high end air cooling, to a $20 hyper 212.
The 'benefits' of closed loop cooling, is that you get to pay a jacked up price for something that's marketed as looking cool! You get to pay an additional 20% over what a similarly performing air cooler would do!
For new prices - you can find used and discounts that make them great (The new zalman lq320 outperforms the h100 and was only $39 a week ago).
There's no reason to buy closed loops over big air coolers. People who don't know what they are talking about, will say the advantage of closed loops is that it's easier to mount, gives your case more space. I've owned multiple closed loop water coolers, and lots of big air coolers, and the hardest cooler I had for mounting was the Corsair H50, while the easiest cooler I've ever mounted was the NH-D14.
You aren't gong to be mounting-unmounting a lot anyways, and imo, big air coolers look awesome. They all look awesome. But be aware that with closed loops, you can't have those tubes be too tight, or else you get 'tube torque' where they push on the cpu heavily on one side of the mount, causing uneven mounting and worse temps. So you are limited in where you can put your closed loop. Also, it's not just the size of a 120mm fan, it's got that extra part on it that sticks out, where the tubes enter and where water is held.
Basically, closed loops will generally only fit where a 140mm fan will fit. You could have a fan sit on the case mount, then put the cooler on top of it, but then it's not some sleek water cooler anymore, it juts out, where it can interfere with top case fans, it can interfere with VRM heatsinks and fans if your motherboard is like that.
My point, is that there really aren't any advantages to closed loop coolers, over air cooling. And even big air coolers have stuff like you can slide up the front fan to fit large RAM, or the closed loops can be hard to mount.
For example, in my NZXT Gamma, I was unable to fit my Corsair H50 on the back mount because the radiator jutted out slightly larger than a 120mm fan does, I could not fit it on the top fan mounts because that would cause too much tube torque (you literally cannot just force the tubes to bend a certain way, you can't put them on too much of an angle), and they would not reach the front fan mounts. I literally had to mount my Corsair H50 on top of my case... by going outside of it, meaning I could not put a side panel on my case (it was okay, I just bought it for testing).
When buying a cooler,you don't look at closed loop vs air. You look at "What is the biggest cooling drop I can get, for the best price". If that Antec Kuhler was under $45, it'd be a great deal. At the price it's currently at, it's meh, it's not bad.
But I have the C3 revision and and my specs are
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