I have five boxed on just about all of the i7 series processors with 12 GB of ram and found them all to be acceptable. On the previous quad core processors, all of them had issues doing 5 clients in major cities and other issues when nearing at lvl content areas.

as you have seen if you have been forum trolling, you should also be considering a newer i5 processor. They are at the same or near same price point as an older generation i7 depending on what deals you can find intown / online. I think there are a couple of 5 boxers using the i5 overclocked setup and they are happy with their performance / sability, though people usually don't report when their system goes south, overclocked or not, so take it with a grain of salt.

I think that you will be happy with the reduced heat and power usage that your current setup to the new setup though.

Gl on your purchase