rtbond, my Core 2 E8400 is running at 3.6Ghz. A mild overclock, but with the Artic Cooler, it is running at 25C, no load, and 42C under load. Nice thing is, it is much quieter than the stock Intel unit and it does a better job of cooling. Just lose the default thermal paste they apply to it and use Artic Silver instead.

The CPU's can handle a significant amount of heat, it is the surrounding components that is the issue. If the CPU gets really hot, it could damage/shorten the life of the surrounding components on the motherboard.

Ideally, you really want to keep the CPU at 45C, or lower, at all times. That is an ideal condition. It is not a requirement.

The i7's will run hotter. There is no way around it, but a good aftermarket cooler should keep them well under control.

As far as a video card to drive two monitors goes, it all depends on what you are doing with them. If you do nothing but work in the 2D world, you really do not need much video card to handle two monitors. The one rtbond quoted is more than enough for a dual monitor setup running in the 2D realm.

Skuzzy - Thanks for your cooler info. The issue at the moment is there are not many aftermarket CPU coolers available for the LGA 1366 sockets used by the Core i7s. I am waiting for folks like Artic Cooler to offer something.

David: Thanks for the input on the North Hollywood source. I'm in Orange County but that's not that big a drive. OTOH, I've decided to build the unit myself. Never done if before but it doesn't look that hard. We'll see about that. I may need your guy after all.

rtbond: The 9500 GT looks OK to me. If I read the spec correctly, the 9500 GT has one Dual-Link output and one single DVI. That should work for my 30" that needs the Dual-Link plus my 21" that only needs a standard single link DVI.

Skuzzy & rtbond: Thanks for the info on the CPU cooler. It does look like an aftermarket CPU cooler is going to be required to overclock the 920. I'm shopping so I'll post any info that I run across.

Intercept, you misunderstand,

That card connects with either 1 dual link or 2 single link.

it's max rez is still only 25--x16-- pixels, and unless I'm mistaken a 30" requires both outputs of this card, you will need to run a 2nd graphics card to push a signal out to your 21"

Dave

Dave: Dual-Link

I don't think that is the way Dual-Link works. I think Dual-Link is the same DVI connector but is wired to carry two links. If that were not the case then you could never run two Dual-Link feeds off of any Nvidia card since even the top of the line cards only show two physical DVI output connectors.

Here is what Wikipedia says about it:

"The DVI connector usually contains pins to pass the DVI-native digital video signals. In the case of dual-link systems, additional pins are provided for the second set of data signals."

For the 9500 GT the Nvidia spec says the following:

Standard Display Connectors:
Dual Link DVI
Single Link DVI

That seems consistent with my comments above.

Overclocking a Core i7 920 with the stock CPU cooler is discussed at this website:

Overclocking the Core i7 920 with stock CPU cooler

Here are the key paragraphs:

Since there are so many things that can be adjusted, as well as voltage; you may be a little confused as you how you might go about overclocking it. Well, it's actually rather simple. For simple overclocking, all you need to do is adjust the Base Clock and everything else will follow along. It would be nice if you could adjust the CPU Multiplier, but you can only increase that if you have the 965 cpu.

The Core i7 920 at 2.66Ghz has a Base Clock of 133Mhz by default. I've tested mine at both 2.92Ghz (146Mhz Base Clock) and 3.0Ghz (150Mhz Base Clock) using the Stock Cooler that come with the CPU, and both run very stable and seem to keep within safe temperatures; 86c max under 100% cpu load in my initial testing. Note, I do have 2 case fans, so I would recommend you have at least one good case fan for this.

I have tested the 920 at 3.2Ghz by setting the Base Clock to 160Mhz, but the temps got up to 90c under initial tests of 100% cpu load, so I set it back down to be safe. I added another small case fan and now it seems I'm able to get 3.2Ghz running without worrying about the temp. In initial testing, under 100% cpu load it's reached 88c max, and runs extremely stable.

I also tested the 920 at 3.4Ghz by setting the Base Clock to 170Mhz. In initial testing, under 100% cpu load it's reached 89c max, and runs extremely stable.

Skuzzy,

I understand what you are saying and the engineer in me (I'm an ME) agrees with you. But the practical guy in me sees my 3.2GHz C2D system only drawing 180W fully loaded in Vegas. With start up being under 200W. Perhaps Kill-A-Watt isn't catching a brief spike?

But if that is the case then I would think there is enough capacitance reserve in a good power supply to handle brief spikes.

Just hate to see people:

1. Waste money on too large power supplies by spending too much on purchase and then electicity bills by not running in the sweet spot.

2. Buying a cheap power supply with a big rating but no guts.

- Mark