Arkatek

No amp needed for speakers with such low impedance. Almost all headphones have a higher impedance than that, amps are mostly used for audiophile quality headphones which have impedance up to, or even over, 300 ohms.

Sweet prizes, thanks to Intel, Gigabyte and Linus!

I have a RAT 7 from 3 years back works like new, built like a tank, and extremely comfortable.

No question if you have audiophile grade acoustic equipment get a sound card. If you are using cheapy speakers or anything below a good gaming headset best i have heard were the 7H the difference is noticeable but not as clear as with high end stuff. Also if you aren't playing uncompressed audio the difference won't be as great. no matter what it's still on board sound and not a piece of dedicated audio equipment.

The CM Storm Quickfire pro is a great value oriented mechanical keyboard available for under $100 however bottoming out i really loud on it so I'd recommend getting some o rings for the keys.

membrane is never a better option unless price matters a lot. Once you go mechanical you will never go back.

Scythe definitely impressed me with the build quality of these fans, they are made with a very hard plastic that feels very different from all other fans. The blades of the fans are made the the same hard plastic and the motor runs at a silent hum on full speed. The motor hub is a bit larger than normal 120mm fans but that's because Scythe claims to have an integrated anti-vibration system which seems to work as these fans hardly make a sound. the corners of the fans are closed so you will have to use long radiator type screws when installing into tapped holes, also due to the tough plastic you would need to lubricate the case mounting screws before you attempt to screw them in. These fans are fantastic on radiators and in free flowing situations as well pushing a large volume of air with minimal noise. Unfortunately Scythe USA is closed so Gentle Typhoons will soon be difficult to find in North America so I would snap up a few as soon as you can.

Can be a lot of things possibly not enough voltage to the cpu, could be old bios as Linus always says download the latest stuff form the manufacturer's site. It could even be faulty power delivery test each component one at a time in a system you know works, don't go throwing everything on a different board isolate variables and if something causes the known stable rig to fail it's likely that component.

Great info already listed above just don't forget to run stress tests. It may seem stable at first but may show failures after 10 maybe even 24 hrs prime 95 is a great testing software that's free. Overclocking is not a quick one day process if you are trying to crank the most performance out of your cpu, take it slow and test before upping the clock speed and voltage. Use the lowest voltage you can to support a stable overclock and that will keep it as cool as possible.

I would recommend Sennheiser HD 558's for their price to performance and the cirumaural open backed design staying comfortable through hours of music or gaming.

The soundcard would give marginal improvements for sound quality on gaming headsets, it will very noticeable if you owned a pair of audiophile headphones. Basically you are limited to the performance of your headset. Audiophile headphones tend to have high impedance drivers therefore the need of an amp to provide the extra power needed for booming bass and general volume of the source. This limits them to mostly in home use as most mobile devices can't power them properly. In a nutshell the benefits of a soundcard would not be as astounding with a pair of gaming headphones as apposed to a soundcard + audiophile headphones.