Dennb, Since you are on the fence about overclocking let me offer you some advise. Don't do it. There I said it, there are a million reasons why you shouldn't overclock a CPU $$$$ is a huge one.

But you just might do it anyway so here is a link for "Heat Sink" temps on popular CPU's.

http://www.heatsink-guide.com/conten...=maxtemp.shtml

Temperature software and probes can be found at almost every PC parts store. www.newegg.com will get you pointed in the right direction.

i believe you guessed right but there's also some software you could use from the web to view this information. e.g try the following software http://www.downloads.nl/results/soft...+Monitor+Vista . hope it helps.

Speedfan is a nice (FREE!) utility that may be helpful for overclockers, as it allows you to adjust the speed of your CPU and case fans according to the temperature. This will allow your machine to be both quiet at idle/low pwer consumption and cool when necessary. Before OCing you may want to consider aftermarket HS and fans (or even if you do not OC, because lower temps means better longevity), or even a water/peltier cooling solution. Good luck and have fun, Mav.