Wow. Thanks for the amazing response Kal-EL. Very helpful.
I've been on a week long binge of sorts looking into overclocking and had come to the same conclusion as your first two paragraphs. The rest of your post basically let me know the best bang for my buck (and way less work) is a more stock approach which is exactly what I was wondering. =D
As far as using the term "stock cooling" I half threw that in there because I thought it might be like nails on a chalkboard to OCers and wanted to test my theory lmao. ATM I'm thinking about a closed loop liquid cooler or a nice air cooler (something like this
http://www.noctua.at/inc/imageviewer.php?item=68&pnr=2 (erm but not for $100 which is what newegg had that listed at O.o)) or maybe just going for a quiet system with low db fans.
I was not sure what you meant by TIM. 95% sure you meant Thermal Interface Material.
http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?t=71658 should help me pick a decent compound haha. Anyway thanks again ^_^