C2D sweet spot

[PhilGQ]

Hi Guys

Could you tell me what the sweet spot is in terms of performance V price on the C2D is at the moment. I don't mind overclocking it to get the most out of.

Could you recommend a C2D, Motherboard and cooler that would give best performance per pound when overclocked.

I have no specific budget to work to, I am just after some viewpoints.

 

[gurusan]

Reasonable bang/buck setup I would choose something like this along with a cooler like the OCZ Vendetta 2....would make a very nice gaming platform:

 

[hterag]

I've just built a system for a friend with an E7200, Gigabyte GA-P31-DS3L and some Kingston HyperX (not my brand choice) PC2-6400 memory, the thing flies. It has a Arctic Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler and I had it up to 4.0GHz stable with no issues, even got it up to 4.2GHz but it needed over 1.3V for that and I didn't want to go beyond that after reading about the problems the 45nm chips have with high voltages.

Very nice setup and as long as you don't need Crossfire/SLi, you won't go wanting. The whole system cost £320 with an 8800GS graphics card, DVDRW and HDD and a Hiper 580W PSU. Over 12k in 3DMark06, not bad at all...