Looking to O/C and upgrade

[psychoclops]

Hi all, was hoping to pick some brains here, I need opinions! OK, so I bought a system from PCS about 3 years ago, now whilst I'm happy to stick with most of what I have, I'm looking to overclock my cpu now and replace the gpu.

So first the cpu: Intel® Core™i7 Six Core Processor i7-3930K (3.2GHz) 12MB Cache which currently has a "TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER" bolted to it. Now I would like to O/C (will probably send back to PCS for that as I don't fancy trying it myself) not sure what clock speed I can get, was hoping maybe 4GHz+ ? Also I would want to switch to liquid cooled, have been looking at a Corsair H100i as a possibility.

Water cooler should fit ok as I have a InWIN Black Dragon Rider Gaming Case (which has holes in the back for the pipes etc)

Now for the gpu: I currently have a 3gb NVidea Gforce GTX 580 and was looking at upgrading to the 4gb 980 GTX, I think this should work out as a simple straight swap. However someone told me I should get a water cooled version, I personally don't think I'd need it but I guess it won't hurt to ask if it's something worth doing? As it stands I'm going to get the usual fan cooled version.

Other points: I have a Corsair 750W PSU in my current rig, hopefully it's enough. my Mobo is a "ASUS® P9X79 PRO: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011". Already have SSD so that's all good Only other thing is my RAM, I bought 32gb (it was on offer, yes I know I don't need anywhere near 32gb lol) it's "32GB KINGSTON QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz (4 x 8GB)" would there be any need to change that?

I'm open to any other opinion/suggestions, I'm in no rush to do this just yet, it's just something I always planned on doing after about 3 years of owning my PC. I'm maybe looking into doing this in the next month or two.

Thanks in advance

psychoclops (aka Rob)

Also apologies if I posted in the wrong section, this just seemed like the closest forum to my questions.

 

[keynes]

Is there particular reason for the overclock? Holes at the back is not what you should be concern about but space for the massive radiator. Choice of water cooled or air cooled gpu depends on your budget, a water cooled gpu is not essential and they are more expensive and may also require a separate radiator.

 

[psychoclops]

Reason for the overclock is down to my love of gaming, nothing more than that really, always planned to eventually overclock. And yeah I guessed a water cooled gpu would may be a bit OTT, quite happy to get the fan cooled version. Also there's plenty of space for a radiator, I vaguely remember when I first bought it the compatibility tool allowed a H100i to be fitted, but went for the Titan as I didn't think I needed a water cooled system at the time.

Also happy 3rd forum anniversary my Jan '12 brother

 

[James.C]

Water cooling on gpu's is more for if you're doing an extreme build like triple or even quad sli, most people do it to show off a rig more than anything really. The coolers that are on air cooled Nvidia GPU's are very efficient and a lot of the time the card is running at such a low temp that the fans don't even need to run.

Now as for upgrading your PSU, here's a couple of links to the specifications of both the 580 and 980 cards.

580:
http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-580/specifications

980:
http://www.geforce.co.uk/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gtx-980/specifications

Granted they are the reference design cards but the 980 requires a lot less power than the 580 so upgrading your PSU isn't necessary.

 

[psychoclops]

Cool, that's good to know, I've pretty much ruled out a water cooled GPU, it would be a waste. So a 980 it is, however about O/C'ing my CPU, I'm reading a lot of reviews about the Corsair water coolers and how unreliable (and noisy) they are. Am I better off sticking to my Titan Fenrir cooler? I now know from doing a little research (and looking through my BIOS) that as the system demands it, the CPU will overclock to 3.8Ghz automatically thanks to the motherboard I have.

 

[James.C]

I wouldn't say Corsair water coolers are unreliable, they are noisy however. I'd honestly suggest one of these two air coolers over liquid cooling, unless you're comfortable doing a custom loop liquid cooling setup.
The Noctua NH-C14 or the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo. The NH-C14 is fairly expensive but it's second to none when it comes to air cooling and the 212 Evo is pretty cheap yet provides incredibly good cooling and even outstrips many more expensive coolers. You can also add a second fan to the rear of the 212 Evo for a push-pull system which will give you even better results

 

[SpyderTracks]

I wouldn't say Corsair water coolers are unreliable, they are noisy however. I'd honestly suggest one of these two air coolers over liquid cooling, unless you're comfortable doing a custom loop liquid cooling setup.
The Noctua NH-C14 or the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo. The NH-C14 is fairly expensive but it's second to none when it comes to air cooling and the 212 Evo is pretty cheap yet provides incredibly good cooling and even outstrips many more expensive coolers. You can also add a second fan to the rear of the 212 Evo for a push-pull system which will give you even better results

+1 for the Noctua, they are very impressive.