New to OC'ing

[aburntrose]

Hey guys, i just finished my new rig, and i'm very happy with it (aside from the need of a new video card. I'm waiting ti'l ati puts out an answer to the 8800). I have to admin, i've been reading up on overclocking, and it seems the bug is starting to tickle me a little.
I have never overclocked before and i am a little scared. I was wondering if anyone could help me. I have read the Practically offical Anandtech OC' guild. But i'm still a little confused. If anyone could help, maybe a quick walkthrough, i would be extreamly greatful. My specs are

ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe Socket T (i've heard this board is hard to oc, but i don't want much.)
E6600
CORSAIR XMS2 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) TWIN2X1024A 6400
Radeon X800gt (will be picking up a 8800GTX soon)
Thermaltake 700w PSU
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB SATA Drive.

If anyone has the time to help me. I would very much appreciate it.
Happy Holidays

 

[customcoms]

First thing: Enter bios

Second thing: Find the settings for overclocking things-I.E FSB speeds, memory timings, MCH/cpu/ram voltages etc in your bios-mine are under genie bios settings, but my board was built from the ground up to run oc's (like the 50% oc I run 24/7) more so than your asus. most decent boards use Phonex Award based biose's, so WHERE settings are shouldn't be too hard to find

Third thing: Don't touch voltages in the begging, unless you KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE DOING! You wanted to isolate components and find the max stable (i.e, max stable FSB by dropping to a lower cpu multi and a lower ram divider) for your ram, cpu and FSB. Then start mixing it up to find the most stable/your limit (at this point you probably won't be hitting max stable oc's, sometime you get lazy like me and say a 50% oc is enough, I'll push for higher after i play 42 hours of counterstrike or whatever).

There are plenty of threads here, the newer boards are generally pretty overclocking friendly from the sense that the clear cmos jumper is rarely used-your board is an nForce5 based board if I am correct, and they are by no means good C2D oc'ing boards-you should be able to get around a 20-30% overclock though.

 

[aburntrose]

Thanks so much Customcoms. Your really brought it down to basic terms, with your advise and some more reading, i think it'll all come together. The only thing that kinda confuses me is the ram aspect of oc'ing. Like lowering the timings and such.
Also, i'm aware of my boards terrible oc'ing qualities >.< . But all i'm really looking for right now is 20-30% increase. Well see what happens. Thanks once again!