Socket 2011 and 1156 IvyBridge

I know everyone raves about Ivy Bridge but it is still Socket 1156 which I personally don't have much faith in it's life. I'll stick with Socket 2011. The prices for 2011 motherboard are $350+ expensive.

What do you think is a better CPU, or is there not much difference ? If you have good cooling, which I was considering a good water cooling, although I'm worried the water tubs pop and water is all over the mobo.

Core i7 - 3930K or i7-3960X ?

Ivy Bridge uses Socket 1155, not 1156. 1156 is pretty much shelved and done with. 1155 still has plenty of life left in it, especially if you don't want to jump into the price range of the 2011 boards. Britton30 explained that here:

i7 Wanted: New motherboard?

People usually don't complain about the price of a motherboard, then go on to say they'll consider water cooling. Depending on how much you plan to overclock, you might not even need to consider water cooling at all.

How much could I push a 3.2 Gig CPU with water cooling ? 3.8 ?

JerometheGiraff said:

How much could I push a 3.2 Gig CPU with water cooling ? 3.8 ?

That's less than a 20% overclock. I'd expect you should be able to do that without water if you have an average K model Intel Sandy Bridge CPU.

I have two or three water coolers in mind. You mean I can push 3.2 to 4.0 or 4.2 with water ? I'm used to fans.

There's an overclocking section of this forum, with a 44 page thread called "post your overclock".

I'd look there for real-life results.

There are no guarantees in the world of overclocking. It is possible you could get a chip that has plenty of headroom to run faster, or one that doesn't seem to be stable much past stock.