A Complete and Utter Noob's first build/OC

[ChaoticEntity]

well not a complete noob, but I havent built a system since the days of P2's and P3's so I'm a noob in this generation of computer building

Asus A8n5x mobo
1gig cosair value select
sapphire x800gto2 400/490 OC'ed to 501/564 (came with 16 pipes unlocked)
3700+ San Diego OC'd to 2.588ghz EDIT: now at 2.805Ghz
Zalman 7700 heatsink (very cool, pretty big!)
WD 74gig raptor
antec trupower 480 2.0 newegg says 20 pin mobo connector, it was actually a 24 also had 2xPCI-e

the 3.3 runs at 3.28 the 5 runs at 4.98 but the 12 runs at 11.78-11.81(never changes under load) it's got power but the voltage on the 12v rail has me keeping a close eye on it.

also I know this ram wasn't ment for OC'ing what's some decent ram that'll let me get my speed up a notch,

mem runs at 3 3 3 9 @201Mhz on a 5/6 divider

Am I missing anything? is this decent for what I have, I ran a 3dmark05 and overclocked my score was 6003, seems a bit low, I seem to remember people hitting 6300-6500 with similar setups, could the 12v rail being a touch low cause this?

any constructive comment appericated! thanks!

 

[jesusfr3ak4evr]

Corsair ValueSelect running at 235MHz? Have you ran it through memtest to check for errors? Also make sure to run prime95 overnight if you haven't to check for stability. My suggestion for lower latency ram even at 250MHz(CAS 2.5-3-3-7 at 250) is the OCZ Platinum Edition 2. Stock is 200MHz at CAS 2.0-2-2-5 1T. You can pick them up on zipzoomfly and newegg for under $160 -- I've seen them drop down to $140 on specials... may be even lower now, as I was checking a few months ago.

That score fits your system. I get 3281 with my 9800 in my sig. I know a 6800GT does around 5500-6000. A 7800 GT gets around 7500-8000, a GTX gets 8000-9000. Not as sure about the higher end Radeon cards though.

 

[ChaoticEntity]

well I switched the divider to 5/6 so now I've got the mem at around 201mhz, this let me push the clock up so now I'm running at 2.805Ghz, been running prime95 for the last hour or so, it hasn't given me any hicuups thus far. Memtest ran for about 20 minutes and comes up 100% no errors at all. so as long as prime 95 holds out overnight I think it's a good overclock! 27.5% from stock, not too shabby