Mobo, System, Overclocking Advice.

Hello, I am currently working on setting up a system for myself. I am completely new to overclocking and have some questions for you with regards to my new system and overclocking. ( have read some posts here on overclocking etc ) budget $ 1500-$1900

My new soon to be rig:

The purpose of this rig is for it to be upgradeable in the future. I am going with a CrossFire Mobo, but not a 100% sure which one yet. I have some issues with my choice, mainly the bios version is not that great for overclocking....ie: this mobo only supports 1.8V ram. I chose this mobo because it has all the other features I am looking for.


Mobo: MSI 975X Platinum V.2

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 2.13 GHz

RAM: OCZ DDR2 PC2-6400 2GB (2x1024MB) Platinum Revision 2 XTC

GPU: ATI Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB GDDR4 48 Pixel Processors PCI-Express

PSU: SEASONIC S12 600W SLI/CF SSI ATX Power Supply

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 320GB SATA NCQ 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache


I plan on tossing another ATI card in there at some point but not for a while after I purchase this.

I am stuck on what case to get for this rig first off. Second if anyone has any better suggestions for any component please post your ideas..especially with regards the the mobo...keep in mind I want firewire support and reasonable price.

1) Is the MSI 975x Plat and power up edition the same thing?

2) what are your thoughts on having a Seagate Barracuda drive as I specified, or a Western Digital Raptor Enterprise SATA (WD740ADFD) 74GB 10,000 RPM 16MB Buffer, with the Barracuda as my backup drive and the Raptor as the OS drive.

Is it going to be that much faster or should I just save my money?

Now with regards to overclocking:

I have read the posts here on the topic, and I am curious...I don't want to fry any components on my system and I want to keep this pc for about 4 years before buying a new one. Please let me know what your thoughts are on overclocking this system, as far as safety, performance, reliability is concerned.

Also, cooling: I will have one fan in the back, one front fan...should I Get anything else if I am running two GPU's and overclocking my system? What other type of cooling should I get and what model exactly..(new territory for me )

Thanks for your time and efforts in advance.

A good overclocking crossfire board is going to cost a bit more then that MSI, I don't see them fixing the bios any time soon.
The ABIT AW9D-Max has the features you seek but only has one PCI slot, and it is a nice overclocking motherboard.

The ASUS P5W DH DELUXE/WIFI is probibly the most feature rich crossfire motherboard out there, it overclocks fine for a Conroe, but I wouldn't recomend it for a Allendale normaly but then again your new to overclocking and might not want to push your CPU that hard so 420-440FSB might be fine for you. and newegg has an openbox deal on it to make it a bit cheaper on you, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813131025R

As far as safty perfromance and reliablity are conserned with the chip.
Going no further then 1.45ish Vcore and 2.2Vdimm passive cooling on the ram should be safe with good air cooling.
CPU cooling Ultra-120 or the Tuniq Tower tower heat sinks are the top performers, if you want downward air flow on the motherboard the SI-128 and Aerocool Dominator are top performing choices.

Ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16820148017&ATT=20-148-017&CMP=OTC-Froogle

top performers for less bucks, could save you a few for a better mobo

hey, thanks for the reply...you're right I don't want to kick the crap out of my system, some general overclocking is all I want, even 400FSB is fine with me and overclocking my cpu standard of 2.13 to 3.0 would be enough. I've seen those values done easily so I am satisfied with those.

I will keep in mind those ranges you gave me and the mobo you suggested is also a good choice just about $100 more than the MSI, I live in Canada so purchasing from USA is no good for me.

I am buying all my stuff from www.canadacomputers.com good local company.

Could you please elaborate more on the cooling you specified, I am very new to cooling not really sure what all those things mean you mentioned.

Also can you suggest a good case for me that will allow me to cool my system properly but one that also has a front loading usb *2, firewire and headphone jack.

Thanks for your help.

There names of CPU air coolers..
Thermalright, sunbeam, thermalright, and aerocool would be the makers in that order.