Like Merc, I'm a big believer in active cooling of the chipset. Have this relatively high speed Panaflo fan sitting on top of the 8800GTS, anchored with a tie to the 24-pin power cable - blowing onto the the copper fins of the NB & cpu area, as well as onto the RAM, which is cool to the touch. It keeps NB temps about 5 - 6 degrees C lower than they would be without the fan.



Haven't been willing to hike RAM voltage above 2.2v, but because of Merc's post above am thinking that's why I'm not getting any more than 1150MHz out of it, when others report being able to get 1200MHz +. Am seriously considering getting the Dominator fans sets, which aren't very expensive and appear to work well.

My remaining question before trying more extensive RAM overclocking is whether it will make much difference to take the RAM from its current 1066MHz (only stable speed beyond 410 fsb) to 1150MHz and beyond. Even now the throughput I'm getting is shy of 8000MB/s, whereas my old 939 board with RAM running 1:1 1T @ 560MHz got throughput of about 8600MHz.

I hear that throughput's not supposed to matter ... but the only way I'd be convinced would be to see whether the benches are better with the RAM above 1150MHz compared to 1066MHz. This would require more voltage and I won't do that without more confidence it's ok to take the RAM beyond 2.2v.

It's hard to say. 2.4v seems the breaking point but who knows. I do think that RAM speed is a lot more important to Intel CPUs than AMD. On an Intel rig you are working through the NB to get to the RAM. On AMD you have the memcontroller onboard the CPU with 2Ghz of throughput. It is the one reaon I think that AMDs next CPU will beat the Core 2s and the reason that cache is not so important on a chip that has a direct connection to RAM through an HT link like AMD has enjoyed for years.

Interestingly, Intel will be putting the memcontroller onboard their next gen chips in late '08. Overclocking these incredible Core 2 CPUs is so hard because you are dealing with the damn NB. I am way over the memory hole thing.

I think that 2.3v on Micron chips is OK if they are well cooled. Mine seem very stable.

Sorry - I was out of town for a couple of days.

No, it's not loud at all. I can't even hear it over my quiet case fans or water pump. It has a 3-pin motherboard fan connector so you can easily use a fan controller (like a Zalman fan-mate) if you want to slow it down.

The only negative with this memory fan is that it can be difficult (and painful!) to install. The two "legs" that hold the fan above the memory are hinged and spring-loaded (with strong springs!). The legs have grooves that grab onto the dimm locking tabs. No worry's about your memory coming loose as the legs pull the locks in against the dimm. Depending on the amount of room you have to work in your case, it's sometimes hard to hold both spring-loaded legs apart and guide it over the RAM. My case is just a mid-tower and with water cooling, 2 video cards in SLI (also w'cooled), there's not that much room. I usually have to extend one leg, hook it over one side of the memory, and then extend the other side and finish. Otherwise it just seems like you need 3 hands.