nah, starkers, the 285 may be brand new except for the 10 minutes i used it but i'd sell it for 225.[/quote]
The second'hand/used bit was more tongue-in-cheek bargaining than anything... as in: "Well it's used, so that means I oughta get it for next to nothing". Thing is, I'd already spent my dough, and being we're on opposite sides of the World, I wasn't in the running to buy it from you anyway... hence the "easily accessible" quip.
As for the SSD, tho, I'd buy that 'second-hand/used' item at a bargain basement price if you figure it don't work/ain't no good.
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quote]I've never found the risk/reward to be worth it for overclocking, for me. Not just the risk of doing it wrong or overheating; there's the risk of timing glitches in the CPU and static discharge. Not insurmountable, but--what do you need the fast clock for? I feel that you ought to be able to verbalize what you intend to use it for before you dig in and do it. If it's to play a sweet game of Quake, by all means do it.
For me, overclocking had a specific goal, upping my CPU for video recording and editing, etc., given that it is more dependent on CPU speed/efficiency than it is GPU speed/efficiency. Since overclocking I've found that I can browse the net and perform other tasks while recording, whereas those additional tasks tended to slow my PC down a lot more beforehand. It's not like my rig was a slouch before, but I do get more achieved now I have that extra bit of speed.
I think the key is not to get too ambitious when overclocking and not take it beyond the sensible. For instance, I'd read about extreme overclockers taking their Phenom II x4 920's from 2.8 up to 4.2 - 4.3ghz, but I just wanted an extra bit of grunt to process videos, not run NASA's space program, so we went to 3.22 and stopped. Thing is, I got a very experience techie to go through it with me, so it's extremely stable and runs like a dream, no hiccups or overheating, with the Zalman cooler keeping it at a steady 52c to 54c, up to 58 - 59c under load.
