Getting rid of your OC, (re-)enabling CnQ, and disabling cores will get you some gains, but that will only go so far on a fundamentally hot chip like a Thuban.
Beyond that, you are going to be spending a little money. Pick any two: cheap, cool, and fast.
Ya, I still haven't taken the time to find out about disabling cores, but I'll do that soon. Is it possible to maybe disable three of them but keep at least part of the OC? I think something like this would keep my gaming potential where its at but drop the electricity usage and therefore the heat output. I guess the point of this post is that I've already chosen, cool and fast.
I do think however that a good solution would be taking my HTPC from my living room and upgrading the cpu and mobo in that, and turning it into a usable desktop for basic work, and then using my computer that heats up everything strictly for gaming (or ripping movies). Then I can just tell one of my roommates to buy an apple TV so they can stream content from my box to the living room.