Okay, I am ready for this. I knew when I bought my hardware that I was going to do it eventually and as my PC approaches it's second birthday, I'm thinking "it's time!"

I'm working with a Core i5 750 2.66Ghz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156), XFX ATI Radeon HD 5770 1024MB GDDR5, OCZ Platinum 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-10666C7 1333MHz Dual Channel Kit, all on a Gigabyte GA-P55-US3L Intel P55 motherboard. At the moment, I am looking to start OC'ing the CPU, then the GPU, then the RAM.

I am currently searching the net for overclocking guides, but I don't want to follow a guide that is erroneous. Being new, I cannot tell a "correct" guide from a "misinformed" one, so if anyone can direct me to a reputable site or to a guide they are currently using, that would be great.

BTW, I am OC'ing with the stock Intel fan for the moment. I know you can push the CPU higher with better cooling but that's not in the budget for now.

Thanks in advance for any help!

OC the RAM will pay dividends you will never see. Fastest way I know to bring about instability and BSOD though. Better to OC that CPU and keep the RAM at stock speeds. Most mobos will run the RAM timings at spec anyway. The thing about OC is that your memory is tied to the CPU so there are memory dividers that change the relationship of the memory speed to the CPU speed so when the CPU is running faster, the memory does not, keeping the memory in spec. Some memory will OC quite a bit, but most wont OC a bit and is just not worth the effort IMHO. Beside the fact that to OC memory in a meaningful way will require more voltage and memory can go up in a puff of smoke with too much voltage since it is not protected like most CPUs are from over-voltage.

That CPU will max out around 4.3Ghz in my experience. That will require voltage in the range of 1.48 to 1.55 which is more than Intel recommends. Keep it at or below 1.45 and that should be the maximum voltage you want and you should get close to or right at 4Ghz. People that run a i5 750 at 4.5Ghz with a high vcore will reduce the life of the CPU to roughly 2 or 2.5 years, but don't care since they will upgrade to something else as it will be obsolete before it goes poof. To run at 4.5Ghz would require 1.8 or more vcore which can burn mobo contact pins too, so the risk of not only smoking the CPU but the mobo too is great if you are not conservative. Another side effect of super high suicide run OC is when the thing crashes or BSOD, it's much worse than a normal crash and can corrupt the OS totally making it un-bootable.

That CPU likes odd multipliers too. 20 is the stock multiplier and some boards can go above that to 21. If yours will, that's good. Mine won't, at least with any stability. So I run mine at 19. Or you can just leave it at 20 and set the CPU speed to 200. 20 times 200 is 4.0Ghz.

The easiest OC will be to leave the vcore at auto and set the multiplier to 20 and the speed at 185 which will get you 3.7Ghz. Most of the the 750 will do that with no additional voltage and run like that from now on.

Problems occur with OC like mine where the vcore for the CPU is raised to reach a higher OC. Higher voltage will reach higher OC, but can massively increase heat. Like I can set my vcore to 1.6 and run my CPU at 4.3Ghz. So a lot more voltage for very little increase in CPU cycles. I have a direct contact heatsink with a push-pull fan set up, two 120mm that run wide open all the time.

Thanks for that, speedbump. But where do you go for guides and learning all this OC stuff? I wonder if you use the stock Intel fan too?

I've just read this article which puts the OC steps in a way I can understand and looks familiar with the way my buddy used to do it. Still looking at my baseline values at the moment, and will take pictures of my stock BIOS settings after posting this.

Looks like a good guide to me.

I've been able to push my bus speed up to 200 MHz with a vcore of 1.15, however, on step 2 of the guide, it is telling me to find the bus for the RAM... and apparently, my system is not stable on anything above 150 MHz. Is this what you are talking about, speedbump? Should I bother with it? The guide says I should be trying to find a bus speed wherein the CPU, RAM, etc. are all happy to play at, so from that I think I cannot avoid having to OC the RAM.

The will be some dividers for your RAM. I've seen several posts where people have got that board to run at 4Ghz, so there must be some dividers. Different manufacturers call them different things.

You are going to have to set the vcore manually, not auto. It's probably going to require about 1.35 at least to get a decent OC with any stability.

I'm alright with overclocking the CPU, it's the RAM bit of the guide that's confusing me. I know you recommended not to but I'm simply following the guide here...

From preliminary testing, my CPU is stable at x15 multiplier and 200 bus speed, so if it can do that at x20, that's a juicy 4GHz.