General Discussions

there are some risks to overclocking your CPU. If you don't have and effective cooling system for your pc, multiple components could overheat. so make sure your tower is well ventilated. From what i've experienced, it's best(if you're using fans) to have the air flowing in one direction. rather than having 2 fans in front, one on the side, and one in the back all sucking air into the tower, i would put 2 fans in front sucking air in, and 2 in the back sucking air out...and my pc runs cold, about 3-5 degrees colder than room temperature when its overclocked.

another risk would be to your power supply. if you overclock your CPU it will need more power to run smoothly, if you're hardware demands more than what your powersupply can dish out, your power supply will burn up. i've run into this problem a couple times, but luckily, powersupply's aren't very expensive.

True. A crap power supply won't be able to handle it.

With Sandy Bridge, you generally don't have to worry about cooling; the new architecture is a radical redesign from previous generation chips, and as a result it runs an average of 20 C cooler than older chips; as a result, you can use the stock heatsink and still overclock past 4Ghz without too much worry.

Also the speed you need depends on what you do. If ALL you do is game, then no, you don't need more than 3.4. If you do pretty much anything else (editing or rendering of any kind, I can't remember anything else), then of course your computer will benefit for the extra horsepower.

Well if I were confident of managing any problems myself then I would take the risk, but in this case I am just needing this computer for straight forward gaming and nothing else, if it works and is stable, then I'm a happy chappy

And thanks for the advice guys, much appreciated

Do NOT OC your CPU. Only idiots do that.

Should say people with more money than sense.

The RAM you picked, would have to be OC on the motherboard to run. So you want 1333 not 1600. And never value ram, its rubbish its called value for a reason :P

The motherboard is the oldest chipset, get one with the 890FX chipset on it as it supports SATA III and USB 3.0

The 68xx series ATI cards are a cheap version of the 58xx/9xx's, do NOT buy them :P You have been warned. Get a 5870 or a Nvidia 460 for a good price for your buck.

Everything else is fine.

[Edited by DABhand, 3/24/2011 6:36:41 AM]

yea..the nVidia 460 is good bang for the buck also u might wanna have a look at the Asus Rampage III Extreme Mobo. just a thought. has USB 3.0 and supports both Crossfire and SLI also has the Intel X58. good board for over-clocking should u feel adventurous someday. looking at the specs u gave...that too looks good.

I have the 965 CPU and I have not problems with it and it runs great. However, Intel does make the better gaming CPU right now. The Intel I5 series is a great gaming CPU. Now the AMD is cheaper so if you looking to save some money there is nothing wrong with the 965.

Value ram is fine, you will not notice any real difference between the value ram and the ram with the shiny little heat sinks. Do get the 1333 speed ram over the 1600, you don't need 1600.

Value RAM is not fine, they don't have great timings.

The timings will make no noticeable difference in games. You will not see any noticeable difference with one ram that has timings of 7-7-7-21 and one at 9-9-9-24.

The only thing performance ram will make a difference in is if you plan to OC the RAM.

[Edited by Drakonis, 3/24/2011 2:50:30 PM]

[Edited by Drakonis, 3/24/2011 2:52:24 PM]

[Edited by Drakonis, 3/24/2011 2:53:15 PM]