Need help with upgrading my build and/or tweeking

[MusashiDan]

Hi, I'm new here and my name is Dan and I'm a college student. I currently have a pc build (my very first pc build) that I've had for over a year now and along the way I've upgraded the graphics card and psu. Here is my current build:

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Mid Tower Computer Case

Motherboard: ASUS P7P55D-E Deluxe LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CPU: Intel Core i5-760 Lynnfield 2.8GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80605I5760

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (I have a total of 4 so 8GB)

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 470

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI Express

Disk Drive: ASUS Black IDE DVD-ROM Drive Model DVD-E818A4/BLK/B/GEN

HD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST3500418AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

PSU: Corsair 750W

I basically copied and pasted from my wishlist in newegg with the exception of the ones I upgraded... ANYWAYS!

Lately my cpu has been running really hot for no apparent reason on my part. I would run PC Probe (a program that came with the motherboard) and the cpu temperature would read 98 degrees Celcius which was ridiculous since I wasn't doing anything on my computer that would cause that much stress. Lately I've only been web browsing and watching my TV shows and that's it. I haven't played games on my computer since I started classes for this semester. My motherboard came with a lot of helpful programs and I ran EPU-6 engine and set the mode setting to auto and had it calibrate the cpu. Once that finished, then I would notice the temperature slowly drop down to 60 degrees. But of course later on or when I restart my computer, the temperature would always read the cpu at 98 degrees Celcius. This problem started happening the moment this semester started for me and I first noticed it when I restarted my computer and upon loading back up, a warning message (the first I have ever seen) would pop up saying my cpu is overheating and says press F1 to resume. I don't mess with overclocking since I honestly don't know how to properly do so successfully. When I first built my pc, I notice the motherboard was designed for overclocking and the programs that it comes with helps with overclocking safetly, or so I was led to believe. So I gave it a try and I overclocked my cpu to 3.36 GHz and didn't experience any problems immediately afterwards. It was after a long session of gaming, specifically Mass Effect 2 on highest settings, that I started to notice instability issues. After that mess I went to the bios settings and set the OS to deal with the cpu speed and haven't had any problems with gaming after that. The highest the temperature would read when playing games on fullest setting was around 70-80 degrees celcius. But now its reading up to 98 while doing absolutely nothing. Yesterday I reformatted my computer thinking that it was a virus or something and now after setting the mode to auto and calibrating it is settling around 50-70 degrees celcius with normal activity.

I want my pc to be ready once Mass Effect 3 and Ghost Recon Future Soldier and other graphic intensive games come out. I'm very picky when it comes to quality and, yes, I know, as a college student I literally can't afford to buy top notch components. But I have an undeniable urge to play my games at the highest graphic settings or else I won't be able to fully enjoy the game. So I decided now to upgrade the cooling system, which is currently now the stock fan the cpu came with, to liquid cooling and looked into CORSAIR H80 (CWCH80) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler. I want to keep using the current motherboard I have for another good year or so before upgrading it, otherwise I would have to throw down a lot of money to upgrade the mobo and, everything else to make it compatible with the mobo and that's just a lot of headache and, again, a lot of money. I've been thinking about upgrading the cpu and/or graphics card but thought that if I knew how to successfully overclock my cpu and gpu then that would save me the trouble of buying more new stuff.

So right now my only concern is the cooling system for my cpu and I wanted your opinion and help on what to do. I wasn't quite sure if the liquid cooling system would fit into my case with everything I have so I'm holding off on buying it and everything else. And, also, I know this is asking for too much, but if anyone could teach me or help me out in any way with successfully overclocking my cpu and gpu then that would be MUCH appreciated. So far only thing I know about overclocking is that the amount of voltages you put in helps it stabilize, but I don't know how to find the right settings.

[bigFOIG]

Lots of questions you got there. I'll answer all your questions with full detail via PM.

[bigFOIG]

But something to get you started... Some thoughts:
Honestly, I would never use motherboard software like the EPU engine and PC probe stuff. It's usually pretty buggy.

Use software like "CoreTemp" or "RealTemp" to monitor your CPU temps instead. These are really reliable.
The Antec 900 isn't a small case by any means and should be able to fit the H80 without any problems.

Your system is still pretty good to this day, and as a college student, I would just save my money.
The 470 is a pretty powerful card and should be able to play newer games well.

I say keep your CPU and your GPU. Play those games you want, and if the performance isn't good enough, then give the GPU an upgrade. Overclocking your GPU won't make you go "WOW" as if you bought a new video card.
Wait until April which is when the Kepler cards should be coming out and pick up a mid-range card. I'm sure you'll be happy with that.

As for overclocking your CPU, I'll help you with that in PM.

[MusashiDan]

Thank you so much for your quick reply! That's a relief because I was beginning to think my current components were outdated and not enough to handle upcoming games at high settings. Never knew the motherboard softwares were known to be buggy, but then again that would explain the stability issues when I first tried overclocking with the mobo softwares. I'll look into the coretemp and realtemp software. Thanks so much and I hope to receive your pm about overclocking. Last time I asked a friend about overclocking, he called me an idiot and ignored me... which is why I've been hesitant about learning how to overclock until now.

[erjohnz]

Originally Posted by MusashiDan

Last time I asked a friend about overclocking, he called me an idiot and ignored me... which is why I've been hesitant about learning how to overclock until now.

Nice friend you got there