Intel i7 950 safe overclocking?

[ic3cold]

I have an Intel i7 950, with an Intel DX58SO motherboard, XFX HD 6870 1Gb, 6Gb Kingston HyperX tri-channel memory, 2 2Tb Samsung HDs.
I know now is an old system and it's showing its age, but I want to overclock it safely, so if anyone can point me out in the right direction, apparently it supports several OC modes, but I am a newb with OC, not with computers in general so, I am open to suggestions, and please don't tell go buy a new one because I am not in the US and that is out of the question ...
BTW using Windows 7 Ultimate x86 and triple booting with Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3

[DragonFury]

Why a 32 bit os? Overclocking the Core i7 950 is fairly easy task. First what type of cooler are you using for your rig? Your computer is just fine, I still have a 970 in play, and other then not being able to break 4.2GHz vs the 5GHz n the 2600K the 970 will give the 2600k a run for its money. Especially if an application utilizes all of the cores.

there are several different ways we can approach this, I prefer on taking the slow route. So my suggestion to you is to start off with the video card. These are lot less temperamental, and will get you familiar with the benefits/nightmares of overclocking.

[ic3cold]

Why a 32 bit os? Overclocking the Core i7 950 is fairly easy task. First what type of cooler are you using for your rig? Your computer is just fine, I still have a 970 in play, and other then not being able to break 4.2GHz vs the 5GHz n the 2600K the 970 will give the 2600k a run for its money. Especially if an application utilizes all of the cores.

there are several different ways we can approach this, I prefer on taking the slow route. So my suggestion to you is to start off with the video card. These are lot less temperamental, and will get you familiar with the benefits/nightmares of overclocking.

Well the fact is I had to migrate an older computer and it had the 32bit version already installed, so I had no choice but to use that ... it was a really complicated migration ...

My cooler is Intel's stock but so far I had no problems with it, the system is housed in a Sentey Arvina Case, which has 12 fans, and it's own fan for the BIOS, so it's stable, and runs cool.

AS you say I will try to OC the graphics card, first, and maybe later add better cooling.

[DragonFury]

Yes start there with the video card, you will need a better cooler for the 950.

A good application for overclocking the video card is MSI Afterburner, as you can monitor the temps and adjust the fans peed, and overclock the video card. Overclocking the video card is really simple, start with one setting first, like the GPU Core speed, up by 3, run benchmarks, every 15 run a slew of benchmarks, and game on it for a bit. Repeat till video card locks up, or displays artifacts, or goes above 80°C full load then drop clock rates by 5. Do the same approach to the memory on the vid, but you cannot monitor its temps so look for artifacts/ or signs of locking up then drop clock rates by 5. You may want to set the fan on the video card to 40%-60% this to me a is good spot and balance to noise to cooling ratio. Good luck and happy overclocking.

The main thing you need to remember is to take your time, if it takes a couple of days to overclock then so be it, take a couple of days.