Overclocking is a line most people won't cross. Many perceive the risk or inconvenience as too high, but the performance gains can be significant. It's not necessary to resort to water cooling or other extreme measures. The Q6600 quad core cpu from Intel can be overclocked if you don't mind removing it from its socket. Since my machines were built by me, I didn't mind doing this. By covering one of the pins on the Q6600 with electrical tape before reinserting it, the front side bus (FSB) goes from 1066 MHz to 1333 MHz. See http://forums.nvidia.com/lofiversion/index.php?t58361.html for more details. Why not overclock by changing settings in the BIOS instead? Not all motherboards have BIOS options for overclocking. Under heavy load, my Q6600 now hits 3 GHz instead of its official maximum of 2.4 GHz. I haven't observed higher processor temperatures.

It's great being able to get my work done faster. If only someone would figure out some pin mods for laptops that have removable processors!