What system to keep?

[Naxos]

Ok so I find my wife on my computer too much these days, so I ordered some new parts to get her off. She is currently using a dell P4 3.0ghz and its not keeping up with her demands these days. I just ordered an I7 2600K, Asus P8Z68 Pro, and 8GB of RAM. Thre rest of the parts I'm going to use will either come out of my system or I already have. Here is my current setup.

Asus Rampage II
I7-920 @ 3Ghz
6GB Ram
Intel 80GB SSD/SuperTalent 64GB SSD/WD 300GB Raptor/WD 1TB
GTX 295/9800GT

I have a decent cooler Thermalright TrueBlack 120, but my crappy ram keeps me from getting any kind of decent overclock out of my current setup. Either way the wife will be happy, I'm just not sure which system to keep for myself.

 

[Pyree]

You have the 2600k and Z86 with 80GB SSD and 1TB and GTX295 for gaming.

You wife can have the rest for everyday task and lighter gaming.

 

[danraies]

I can't imagine any way in which the 2600K system won't be better.

 

[Naxos]

Everything came in yesterday and I finally got it all back together. I couldn't resist keeping the 2600k. I gave her the 920 and the 9800gt and kept the rest. My new setup is this:
2600k
P8Z68 Pro
8Gb Ram Hyper X 1600mhz
80GB Intel SSD main, 300gb Raptor with the super talent 64GB SSD for RST acceleration and 1TB for Storage
GTX 295...

I would like to do a bit of overclocking, and I'm guessing i'm going to need to ditch the intel stock cooler. What is the general concensus on the best way to go for cooling? It's really hot in my house in the summer time 80-90F. 4Ghz is what I would like to aim for. Besides that what else do I need to get a nice overclock? I'm not sure if the ram I bought is really upto the task, but it was cheap and I'd be willing to get better ram if will get me a better/stable overclock. I just need it to be rock solid and I don't want to up the voltage and shorten the life of the CPU.

 

[Cinci555]

The RAM will not affect your OC on the z68 board. The multiplier is the only thing unlocked that has any real effect not the BUS Speeds. Keep it simple.

Either a nice air cooler (Hyper 212 Evo) or a simple contained water cooler for looks (H80 or H70) will work quite nicely. the big thing is your case, as the air coolers can be quite large.

 

[Naxos]

Plenty of room in the case I had the thermalright ultra 120 in it before. My only concern is the ram clearence the hyper X ram has a really tall heatsink. I've been looking at the H80, and considering a simple water solution. I'm just not convinced that its worth it though. I can get another thermalright, or other high end air cooler for the price of water. Will there be any significant difference in the summer when my house gets really hot using water?

 

[Cinci555]

The h80 is sexxxxxy. It keeps stuff super cool, despite massive overclocking and usage. Also it is easy to install and takes less space than a massive air cooler, plus you can actually see your motherboard around the cooler.

If you want high end air cooling, Noctua D14, best air cooler, but again, it's massive and you will have to take the cooling fins(stupid) off the RAM.

 

[Naxos]

Best answer selected by Naxos.

 

[Naxos]

Decided to go with a Thermalright Archon for cooling. The more I looked into the closed loop water systems the more I didn't want to mess with it. I like to keep things simple and there is just more to fail with water systems.

Got it all put together and then I decided to pull out the Dell XPS 720 case I bought almost 2yrs ago. My intention was to mod it to fit standard boards. Well being a bit busy I never got around to it, but this weekend I started the project for this build. I'm going to start a new thread and post some pics and my progress.