Cooling My PC... Question

Hello,

I am new to overclocking, and I am planning on overclocking my system soon. I have a question or two before I purchase anything.

I have a self-built computer and the specs are:
AMD XP 3200+
ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (128MB)
ANUS A7N8X ATX Motherboard
1GB of DDR-SDRAM PC3200
M-Audio Audiophile Sound Card

Everything is defaulted in bios...

This is what CPU-Z looks like on my system:


I am looking to get the most out of my computer. What would you all suggest I get with a $150-$250 budget?

Thanks for all your help!

chiliandcheese said:

Hello,

I am new to overclocking, and I am planning on overclocking my system soon. I have a question or two before I purchase anything.

I am looking to get the most out of my computer. What would you all suggest I get with a $150-$250 budget?

Thanks for all your help!

Click to expand...

Why don't you start overclocking with whatever you have currently (stock heatsink?), find out what your limitations are (what issue is preventing you from overclocking higher? heat? ram? cpu?), and then decide what you really need to improve your overclock and/or performance.

I would get the latest block from swiftech if you can't get a hand me down used waterblock made by cathar, an mcp600/650 (not sure which is better currently, though I would assume the 650 is), tell everyone what case you have and where you would like to fit a heatercore, and wait for responses. I would not get a heatercore from any water cooling retailer.

personaly i would suggest getting as much OCing with air as you can before making a dive into WCing. then i would go read the stickies because almost all questions are answered there

Nice motherboard, who was it manufactured by again?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I have the same Asus motherboard and to be honest I have found it to be a little lacking in the overclocking department... it is a nice stable board but it doesn't like high FSBs.

To be honest I would say the first thing you want to get for overclocking would be some good spec RAM and maybe a new motherboard. If you don't want to replace your board (and that's understandable) then maybe some high-end air cooling might be a good thing to get.

I was thinking about getting a Koolance Aluminum EXOS Water Cooling Kit. Would this be a bad idea.... also, I forgot to tell you about my RAM. I have 1gig duel channel ram with heatsync things on them.

chiliandcheese said:

I was thinking about getting a Koolance Aluminum EXOS Water Cooling Kit. Would this be a bad idea.... also, I forgot to tell you about my RAM. I have 1gig duel channel ram with heatsync things on them.

Click to expand...

What brand of ram?.... EXOS is an OK watercooling KIT, but as many would say, DIY watercooling is the best. You might be dissapointed with any prebuilt kit because you most often get hotter temperatures than air cooling. Read up some reviews about it... Good luck!

It is DDR-SDRAM PC32000 memory... duel channel