Tips for SSD's on a Windows based system:

Disable indexing

Disable defragmentation

Disable Write Caching

Firefox - Use memory cache instead of disk cache

Free up extra drive space

Disable System Restore

Disable Hibernate

- Ctrl + F is your friend.LGA1155/2011AM3/AM3+Mostly. Computer parts are pretty damn durable and there are a ton of safeguards in place to auto throttle down a CPU, increase fan speed, and even shut down before any harm happens.In general it is wanted to keep temperatures under 65C using a CPU load program (Like in the OP, Prime95). A little over is fine. Idle temperatures are not that important and are often reported inaccurately. Temperature variation across cores is normal.It happens. Every person is not going to get 4.8Ghz out of an i5 2500K. 1.3V and 4.4Ghz is a good benchmark for many though.In general, the most resources you want are found by simply using Google. 'Processor + Motherboard' will give you a lot of good results. 'How to overclock (processor)' as well.A popular 2500K (P67) guide is clunk's, here: http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/39184-p67-sandy-bridge-overclocking-guide-beginners.html Type (Which processors will work with your motherboard. Make sure it matches or is compatible with the CPU you are buying.)(Different chipsets (H67,P67,Z68,770,880,990) determine what possible connections and extras motherboards can support. In general the performance gains are not noticible and it is used mainly to tell how many PCI-E lanes a motherboard can support)(Does it use DDR2 or DDR3? 1.5V or 1.65V? Most use 1.5V DDR3 today)slots (How many expansion slots do you need? PCI-E x16? PCI? Do you want two GPU's and a wireless PCI-E card? A PCI sound card?)(Do you need HDMI out? USB 3.0 ports? On board digital out?)(Your case will have room for a certain formfactor of motherboard (ATX[normal], mATX[small]. Some cases only fit mATX and are labeled as such)(On rare occasions there are incompatibilities between certain cards and memory with motherboards)(Most brands on the market today are solid. Newegg reviews are generally helpful to determine a DOA rate. MSI, ASUS, ASRock, and Gigabyte in no particular order are some of the most known.)(You pay more for more features. Higher end boards will also have more power regulations, use less power, and keep voltage in check more than cheaper boards)-ability (Usually nearly equal across the board. If you want a slightly higher overclock, you can pay more for a motherboard with better power regulation)(Always try to find the best bang for your buck, don't buy a mobo with features that you will never use!)1. Determine the platform (Chipset + Socket)2. Determine what functions you deem necessary for the motherboard to have3. Make a shortlist of all motherboards that have your demands4. Pick the board that has good reviews and has the best priceSpeed and latency for RAM (e.g. 1333 9-9-9-24 vs 1666 8-8-8-24) is not a big deal. In many cases it is just 1-4% difference. 1333Mhz DDR3 is perfectly fine for most. Save your money unless a sale is on, our you want to buy neat looking RAM. Just make sure the tall RAM heatsinks don't block your CPU heatsink!4GB is enough for gaming. 8GB if you do a lot of multitasking or video work.DDR3 prices are currently quite low and shouldn't drop much farther.When you are in the market for a new GPU follow the same rules as with the motherboard. Determine your budget, features that you need etc.**CHECK REVIEWS FROM OP SITES!**: There are many different brands in videocards, do they differ?: Most cards are very similar. Brands are there for warranty and support. Sometimes a brand will use a custom cooler.If the card uses the reference PCB, there is **** difference per brand, its the same card they just slap a different sticker on it.But if you have a pre-factory overclocked card or they are using another cooler then the reference design there might be a difference, check hardware review sites for these GPU's.SSD is a abbreviation for 'Solid State Drive': a 'drive' with no mechanical parts, but with a conventional disk-interface (usually SATA).An ssd contains memory chips (flash memory) to store the data.The biggest advantage is data is almost immediately available, without the need of moving a mechanical head to the area on the hard drive where the desired data is stored.At this moment pc-components such as the processor, memory (ram), graphics processor and other components, perform well enough to meet the demand of the most users. Still we have to wait while using a computer...So where can performance still be increased dramatically? The answer: SSD's!collection: part of the functionality of the firmware of ssd's that automatically merges fairly unused memory blocks for better performance-partitioning: leave blank space for better performance: OCZ method (tool) to improve performance: creating a partition with a size that is exactly the cluster size multiplied by a factor: a ATA (contoller) command from the operating system to an ssd, that can tell that a memory block on the ssd can be erased to improve write performance - It's a feature of Windows 7 but keep in mind that your SSD must support it!leveling: spreading write-actions on memory cells evenly over the whole ssd - this prevents wear of the flash cells increasing their lifetime/ SLC: Multi Level Cell or Single Level Cell - the latter lasts longer, is theoretically faster but more expensive, so mlc-based ssd's are now sold more, especially to consumers.- Firmware: YES (check if there is new firmware out and if so install it, usually gets speed increases)- Partition alignment: YES (Windows Vista (SP1 and later) and Windows 7 always create aligned partitions.)- Defragmentation: NO (it's important that you turn off automatic defragging on the SSD. see below)- Indexing: NO (its better for the drive durability + speed to turn this off. right click on the SSD in "my computer" and uncheck "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties" you will probably get some error for some files that cant be accessed just skip them)- AHCI: preferably enabled (this is a bit tricky since not all motherboards can actually do this. To enable ACHI also differs from pc per pc but there are some steps that are necessary. you can google this easily enough. -> be warned tho! there is no guarantee that this will speed up your SSD, also enabling ACHI requires to be done before installing Windows, you can hack it into the registry later but that can make your system unstable, so read up if you want to do this)Go to the command prompt (run -> CMD) and key in "fsutil behavior query DisableDeleteNotify" if you get a 0 (zero) TRIM is working. To enable it key in "fsutil behavior set disabledeletenotify 0"Here is a list with some good tweaks for your SSD (** as always be careful what you change, most of these are quiet harmless but there are never guarantees!)Description: Indexing creates and maintains a database of file attributes. This can lead to multiple small writes when creating/deleting/modifying files.Searching for files will still work.Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Windows Search -> Startup type: Disabled -> OKDescription: Defragmenting a hard disk's used space is only useful on mechanical disks with multi-millisecond latencies. Free-space defragmentation may be useful to SSDs, but this feature is not available in the default Windows Defragmenter.Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Services and Applications -> Services - > Right-Click Disk Defragmenter -> Startup type: Disabled -> OK(Depends on SSD. Crucial M4 SSD leave on (as of 9/19/2011)Description: There is no cache on the SSD, so there are no benefits to write caching. There are conflicting reports on whether this gains speed or not.Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Manage -> Device Manager -> Disk drives -> Right-Click STEC PATA -> Properties -> Policies Tab -> Uncheck Enable write caching -> OKDescription: If you use Firefox, there's a way to write cached files to RAM instead of the hard disk. This is not only faster, but will significantly reduce writes to the SSD while using the browser.Instructions: Open Firefox -> Type about:config into the address bar -> Enter -> double-click browser.cache.disk.enable to set the value to False -> Right-Click anywhere -> New -> Integer -> Preference Name "disk.cache.memory.capacity" -> value memory size in KB. Enter 32768 for 32MB, 65536 for 64MB, 131072 for 128MB, etc. -> restart FirefoxDisable the Page FileDescription: Eliminate writing memory to the SSD, free over 2GB of disk space. Warning - If you run out of memory the program you're using will crash.Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Properties -> Advanced System Settings -> Settings (Performance) -> Advanced Tab -> Change -> Uncheck Automatically manage -> No paging file -> Set -> OK -> Restart your computerAlternatively, if you want to play it safer, you can set a custom size of 200MB min and max.Description: Don't write backup copies of files when installing new programs or making system changes. Can free up between a few hundred MB to a couple GB. Warning - Although unlikely, if a driver installation corrupts your system, there won't be an automatic way to recover.Instructions: Start Menu -> Right-Click Computer -> Properties -> Advanced System Settings -> System Protection Tab -> Configure -> Turn off system protection -> Delete -> OKDescription: You may free up 1GB of space on the SSD if you have 1GB of memory, 2GB of space if you have 2GB memory. You will lose the hibernation feature which allows the equivalent of quick boots and shutdowns.Instructions: Start Menu -> Type cmd -> Right-Click the cmd Icon -> Run as Administrator -> Type powercfg -h off -> Type exitAnd finally the ever important question: What SSD should i buy ?Unfortunately there is no definitive answer for this question, technology changes and evolves all the time. So if you are planning on buying an SSD read up some reviews on trusted sites (see the websites in the link section).