For the very first time I have tried overclocking the CPU. I have a AMD 64 3200+ venice CPU. At default it runs at 2 GHz. I first tried a 10% overclock at 2.2 GHz. When running Medieval Total War II its temperature finally reached 70 deg celsius which I found a bit risky but still the computer worked without problems. But I noticed no noticably improvement in performence in any way. I now run the CPU at 2.1 GHz and the temperature can eventually go as high as 67 deg cel at maximun. At the default 2 GHZ the CPU reached 55 deg cel with MTWII and FS9. I havn't tried FS with the CPU overclocked.I find theses temperatures rather high compared to what I expected. My chassi doesn't have any extra chassy fans. The CPU fan is just a few cm from the PSU. Can this affect my result? If I would get another chassi could I then be significantly more successful in overclocking?In addition I haveNVIDIA 6600GT 256 M DDR3 RAM1 Gb 400 MHz RAM2 160 Gb WD RE2 HD in raid 0I'm considering upgrading my system could it be a good idea to spend money on a new chassi?

55C is pretty normal for an A64 single core on stock cooling with average joe case airflow. Those much higher temps at 5 and 10% overclock suggest to me that you are using the auto overclock feature of your motherboard that is probably bumping the CPU core voltage up along with the FSB. My current motherboard, the Gigabyte DS3 is guilty of that crime also and I get insane vCore and resultant temperature levels if I let the motherboad auto handle voltage on the 50% overclock I run. I just set the voltages to manual and leave them as they are and everthing runs fine (and cool) up to 3.3GHz before I need to start bumping voltage up. More often than not, it is not necessary to bump CPU core voltage up at all to achieve such small overclocks, so you might want to try manual overclocking and voltage setting. eg. my old A64 3000+ at 1.8GHz would overclock to 2.35GHz before I had to bump up vCore, after which temperatures started skyrocketing like you are seeing. If you are new to manual overclocking, you need to consider the settings on the following items:1. Memory - auto may still work OK, but otherwise you have to calculate what ratio will keep your memory close to its rated value. eg. with my C2D, if I leave memory at auto for a 50% overclock, it tries to run my 800MHz memory at 1200Mhz - NOGO! But if I set the ratio to 2:1 then at a 400MHz bus speed my memory runs at its rated 800MHz.2. Voltages - I set vCore to manual and just leave it at the autodetect value ie. 1.3000V for my C2D. I set all the others to manual at default too, otherwise the BIOS scales them up uneccesarily with the overclock.3. AGP / PCI-E speed - if you can, lock AGP to 66MHz and PCI-E to 100MHz, depending on which flavour of graphics card your motherboard supports.Those are the most important ones. Let us know if this helps out with the temp problem.Gary

I don't think you should need to increase the voltage to the CPU to get a 10 per cent overclock, hence I am curious about the increased temp reading of your CPU. If you are interested in overclocking and are considering an aftermarket cooler but don't want the hassle of water cooling, there are some relaatively inexpensive and easy to fit air-cooling units that give results near to what can be achieved with water cooling.Thermotalke Big Typhoonhttp://www.overclockercafe.com/Reviews/coo...Tt_Big_Typhoon/Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Prohttp://www.gideontech.com/content/articles/345/1Enzotech Ultra-X CPU Coolerhttp://www.pro-clockers.com/review.php?id=205Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer