Patrick's Core i7 machine runs great at 3.5Ghz, overclocked up from the stock 2.6... but high temps caused the CPU to throttle back to 2GHz.

How do you get the performance back up, or just overclock your CPU higher? Better cooling can help! He swapped the stock Intel cooler for a Zalman 9700... then found out a minor upgrade on his thermal compound dropped temps even more.

The end result? A machine that runs at 3.4GHz even when all the cores are running at 100%. That's a big improvement over 2GHz with the cores at 100%.

BTW, Intel, not being all public about the max temps for Core i7 CPUS? Tres annoying... props to the Puget Systems crew for doing the homework and sharing the word on Core i7 max and recommended operating temperatures.

And, no, don't worry, you're not going to melt your CPU down.. it'll throttle back the speed and shut down long before that.