Okay, my specs:

Q9450
4 Gigs 800 Mhz Corsair RAM
2x GTX 260 Nvidia cards

I have no money. I'm poor (two year old and bad economy). Buying a new cpu/mobo just isn't attainable right now. So, I was thinking of going out and buying one of those H80 water coolers to overclock my CPU.

Will this help at all in DCS A10? Is it worth the effort? Particularly with my CPU (pre I5 and I7)?

Based on my experience I'd say yes, it'd be worth the effort.

I'm by no means an expert in overclocking, but I've been doing it over the last few years and it really made a great difference in simming. Don't know if you've done it before, but as long as you read up first, take your time testing and resist the urge to go for "just that little bit more" you'll probably be very happy you did it.

Just remember when you're overclocking pre- i processor you're going to be overclocking everything your processor, and your RAM and I believe your graphics cards as well.

So you'll need to be aware of that- and either increase power to those other areas... or underclock them so that they remain at their original settings.

And if you're as hard up on money as you're saying I wouldn't be heading out and buying a hundred dollar cooler that really isn't all that good in its stock form when something as simple as a coolermaster 212 evo can be bought for 30 dollars and will more than likely be more than enough for your needs- but for 10 extra dollars you can buy another fan for a push pull advantage.

I had the H70 and wasn't all that impressed by it until I upgraded it with a couple of 38mm 2000 rpm fans- which were quite loud...

To be quite honest- your scenario isn't exactly appealing for overclocking either way... if you don't know what you're doing you could torch components including your videocards, RAM or CPU... or burnout elements on your mobo- and it doesn't sound like you have the funds to run out and buy those.

My suggestion to you would be to stay the course, turn the detail level down to minimums... the risk you're taking by overclocking an already old processor (not to mention everything else attached to it) is simply too great.

Testing an overclock is rigorous process and will be torture to your machine... it HAS to be- that's how you test it. You're increasing your odds of failure for little proportionate gain.

No, the Core2Duo and Core2Quad have separate frequency settings. I do run my E6400 "linked" @400MHz for 3.2GHz though, but the RAM is capable (OCZ Reaper HPC DDR2 PC2-6400). I forgot what I have my Q9400 running at (400MHz fsb probably), but it's options are similar. The E6400 is cooled by a Xigmatek 1283 and the Q9400 by a Noctua NH-D14.

Whoops then I stand corrected on that. I maintain my stance on the practicality of overclocking in this situation- however.