Overclocking is fun but after 2 years on my Intel 700 overclocked to 966 and at one time 1000 something and the GeForce2 GTS overclocked to 400/oh I forget the other number ... one day the machine start GPFing and even after I brought down all the setting to defacto both the CPU and Vid card has not worked to its 100% no crash capacity. Since then that machine has been buggy. I don't know the life expectancy of a normal CPU but overclocking CPUs and Vid card does lessen the lenght of expectancy on the product. As fun as it is I have wasted LOTS of time that I will never get back. Time that could be better spent snowboarding, mtn biking, walking with the fiancee.
With the ever dropping prices of CPUs I would rather spend $200 on a higher priced faster CPU than spend it on a $200 water cooler setup for my CPU. Why do you need all that extra processing power that will need extra cooling (extra noise) while a cheap integrated CPU on motherboard (VIA C3 processor 800Mhz - 1 Ghz - only a good heatsink needed) can easily power a DVD/CD player, video card with hardware MPeg decoding, sound card (digital out). Hell even a Pentium 2 can power that stuff.
I got a VIA mother board and VIA C3-800mhz for like $130 canadian. Powered it with a ANTEC 375W power supply and I don't even hear any sound. The damn computer CD player spinning makes more sound!!!
http://www.via.com.tw/en/viac3/c3.jsp
