Well, today was a bit better than the rest of the week has been. My xbox will be on its way tomorrow morning, and I got my computer's heatsink re-seated.

It still doesn't change the idle temperature of about 38-42C, but under load there's a significant difference. The big pain is that my bedroom is about 25C all day now that summer is in full swing. This just drives the heat up, and I'm sure in the fall/winter (which here in Nova Scotia makes up about 8 months of the year) the idle temps will be down around 30-35C.

However, I still want to make sure my load temps are ok with all you computer geniuses out there. I was going for 4.0ghz (tough to do on air) and I could do it but it takes a lot of fine tuning that I don't have the patience for so I gave up on that. Instead, I'm sticking with an OC of 3.8ghz. To be honest, I can't see much of a drop in performance from 4.0ghz so whatever. I still idle about 42C because I have my voltages currently at stock (1.25) and 1.10 on my FSB. Under the load of Prime95 which is seriously harsh, it won't go past 60-62C after an hour (at which point the cpu just wont get hotter). This is like a 10-12C temperature difference from the stock cooler. Not bad for air, no? In the fall and winter as I mentioned before, the temps will probably drop into the 50s at load. The beauty of course being that gaming won't flat line my cpu at 100% and so I suspect my load temps are in the 50s as is. Huzzah! (I think...let me know if you know haha).

I'm going to run Prime95 for a few hours just to make sure all is swell, but I'm pretty positive I'm ok. At most I'll up the voltages a bit on the FSB, but it shouldn't take much more. Maybe the core at 1.28 or 1.3 but I can't see it possibly needing more, even with Vdroop.

More good news! I'm into my 92nd hour in Persona 4 and I'm on the last two dungeons (going for true ending, here). That means you can expect a review in the very near future.

That's about it for now, I'll keep you guys posted on how things go. I'm going to run 3D Mark 06 tonight, and I hope to get close to 20,000 points. I could probably get very close with 4.0ghz, but I may still get 17 or 18k.

Have a good one!

so....what CPU do you have? 
 
been preparing to OC my Q9550 from 2.83ghz (stock) to a mild OC of 3.4ghz (which is the 8.5x400).  All I should need to do is increase the FSB to 400mhz from 333mhz while leaving the voltage set to auto. 
 
quick question, if my RAM is rated at 1066mhz (currently running at 800mhz (400mhz X DDR2)) I shouldn't run into any problems right?

" so....what CPU do you have?  been preparing to OC my Q9550 from 2.83ghz (stock) to a mild OC of 3.4ghz (which is the 8.5x400).  All I should need to do is increase the FSB to 400mhz from 333mhz while leaving the voltage set to auto.  quick question, if my RAM is rated at 1066mhz (currently running at 800mhz (400mhz X DDR2)) I shouldn't run into any problems right? "