You can only over-clock the motherboard if you have the option in the BIOS to change the frequency, multiplier and/or FSB speed. Video cards can use software, as stated. 

When you change, or slightly ramp up the FSB on the motherboard, that automatically ramps up the RAM speed with it, in most cases.   The Multiplier is just for the CPU.  So, if your CPU is at 10x, it may to 10.5 to 11.0...    Still, you HAVE to have a BIOS that allows you to change the options.

All you need to do it GOOGLE what over-clocking is, you wul get a more detailed answer.

If you go too far, you will get BSoD in XP...

bigtoe1986 wrote:

Yeah i have googled it but it does not provide any indervidual estimates.
The mobo im getting is ASUS P5N-T Deluxe AiLifestyle Nforce 780i SLI socket 775, 8 channel audio ATX mother board. Runs about 10oC cooler than other mobos.

Ill be getting a E6850 Core2 Duo 1333 fsb 3GHz.
Two Geforce graphics cards (not sure which ones yet) possibly BFG.
OCZ 4GB Kit (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC2-6400 Memory NVIDIA SLI READY EDITION CL5
Arctic Power 700W PSU - With PCI-E, 4x SATA, 20+4, ATX12V, 8pin +12V Connectors

As far as im aware it does have the overclocking option in the bios.
Ill be running Vista ultimate 64bit as i think i need to move on from XP PRO

I would not go to Vista x64. I was running it for awhile and if you are a gamer you are going to lose performance. I did a benchmark in... Company of Heroes I believe it was. Vista x64 was giving me just under 30fps, then downgraded to XP, put me to 60fps. That was after losing 2GB of RAM.

As for that mobo, it has software to overclock and stability testers to insure everything is okay. So once you get it, get the latest software from nVidia and just use that to overclock.

Shiranui wrote:

As for that mobo, it has software to overclock and stability testers to insure everything is okay. So once you get it, get the latest software from nVidia and just use that to overclock.

Thanks for the info on that.
After doing a bit of reading im under the impression you can get better results by overclocking in the bios, the only downside is finding a stable point . I have also been looking at some memory timings with different types of RAM so ill have to play around with those to see whats the best combination.

As for vista being rubbish for games, its not really a big deal to me. I like the fact that it uses more ram and also caches to the ram too. This will be of more benefit to me.

There are many programs for testing if its stable so ill have a tinker.