Next Steps - Cooling and Upgrading

[regulator86]

Hello all,

My system:

i5-2500k @ 4ghz, H60 cooler, 2 x GT 1850 push pull
-0.96v/30 degrees c @ idle
-1.22v/45 degrees c @ gaming load
-1.22v/54 degrees c @ LinX load
4gb RAM @ 1333
GTX560 @ 810mhz
-25 degrees c @ idle
-70 degrees c @ gaming load
550w PSU (OCZ Bronze)
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 motherboard
Corsair 300 with 3 additional GT 1850's

My question - what are the next steps I can take in terms of cooling and performance? Is it best to get a PSU upgrade first, while saving for next generation graphics cards? The system came clocked @ 4.4ghz : 1.3vcore and was completley stable, but my quest for longevity has caused me to push down to 4ghz (Only game I play is ARMA 2 and am waiting on ARMA3). Also, are lower temps a possiblity, or is it a waste spending money on watercooling at my current clocks?

I've got lots of things I could spend money on, but need some clarity as to a long term plan for an ARMA3 system. I'm not speculating on specs etc., just trying to get an idea of the best course of action over the next year in terms of phasing my upgrades and pushing the clocks up even further.

Cheers in advance...

 

[PaulyD]

No point in watercooling at your current clocks tbh when high end air could manage to hold 4.5ghz fine. I would actually overclock further if I was you as 56c full linx load is well below the maximum.

Would you be open to SLI in the future? If so a bigger and better PSU will be needed long term, otherwise you could invest in a good single card and keep the current PSU.

My opinion of course.

 

[regulator86]

Your opinion is valued mate!

MB is xfire only and isn't SLI certified. I didn't realise this when I purchased it and got a GTX 560 with it, so now it's either

1) use hypersli or cracked drivers to try another gtx 560, which isnt too bad an idea given they are about £130 a pop. If it doesn't work I can just sell the card at a small loss. I've seen some really impressive GTX580 beating benchmarks even for non-ti SLI cards.

2) Save up for next gen cards. Given the GTX 560 lets me run ARMA 2 mostly maxed out (albeit at 1440 resolution on my crappy monitor), running ARMA 3 will be my main aim.

Has anyone had any experience of highly overclocked sandy bridge failing so far? I'm cautious because I won't be able to spend money again for a while, so would rather play it safe I guess.

 

[PaulyD]

Would be worth holding off on the GPU side as well, I'm a bit out of the loop on the hardware side now but understand the 7xxx series from ATI is due to come soon, this will obviously push down the price of the current 6xxx series so you might be able to pick up a couple of those cards cheaply for equally good performance.

Haven't heard of hypersli or using cracked drivers for SLI but I wouldn't place my faith on it working as well as official support

You would really want to get an increase in monitor size though to appreciate the extra GPU power too.

I ran many overclocked systems in the past, Q6600 @ 3.6ghz, Q9650 @ 4.4ghz and 920 @ 4.4ghz and never had a single hiccup or failure. It really is that uncommon for a CPU to die due to overclocking, aside from the extreme benchers using DICE/LN2