[hellcamino]

Definitely use the bios for overclocking your cpu and ram with the only exception being setfsb for that last little bit you are trying to get for a bench. Using setfsb at that point is ok as you are already pushing your system to the very edge of it's capabilities and breakage isn't just a possibility anymore...it's a probability!

If you are looking for a 24/7 cpu+ram overclock then it's bios only! The reasons are simple:

Anytime you overclock, instabilty becomes likely and must be alleviated through testing and bios adjustments. If you just change your clock speed in windows using some ghetto software tool you will not only likely corrupt your os but you will corrrupt the bios as well!


When you alter a bios setting within windows you are assuming that the system is stable to begin with, if the system isn't stable and you adjust your bios this way you run a high risk of corrupting your bios and bricking your board and the os is almost guaranteed to be screwed up. I myself don't even use setfsb as I don't push my hardware to the point of likely failure, If attempting to break a world record....ANYTHING goes!

Video card overclocking has to at least initially be done with software and after testing can be flashed to the card, not all people are comfortable with flashing their cards but I at least am a fan of it. You will get slightly better performance with a flashed overclock due to cpu clocks being freed up and you are no longer relying two pieces of software (driver+oc software) to maintain stability to run your cards.