Provided you haven't bought that system yet, I have some advice. Get a different mainboard. The Gigabyte you selected is very stable and it has a good price, but it isn't a fine overclocker. Assuming you want to stay with the Athlon (the Pentium 4 is much better overclocker) I recommend the Abit KR7A-133. If that price is a little steep, try a Soltek SL75DRV-4. For overclocking, you want excellent cooling, meaning aftermarket heatsink/fan combination. For the AMD solution, I recommend the following, listed in order of performance.
Swiftech MCX462 (about $70)
Alpha PAL8045 (about $50)
Coolermaster HHC-001 (about $30-$40)
Thermalright SK6 (about $30)
These coolers should be attached not with the thermal tape provided, but with a thermal grease such as arctic silver III. Instructions for using Arctic Silver are available
here
The reason you need excellent cooling is that as clock frequencies increase, so does heat. In order to prevent the CPU core from incinerating, you need superior cooling. To overclock, you must have a mainboard that supports it. The CPU frequency simply runs off of a multiple of the front side bus. Hence, there are two ways to overclock, and they can be combined. One, increase the front side bus frequency. Two, increase the clock multiplier. On an Athlon XP, the multiplier is locked. However, it can be unlocked, and
this shows you how. On the Athlon MP, the multiplier is unlocked. However, it commands a premium.
If you decide to go the Intel route, there is a slight problem. The multiplier is
permanently locked, and
cannot be unlocked. However, you can easily increase the front side bus speeds. The Pentium 4 Northwood runs much cooler, has a heat spreader (making it hard to crack the core), and is impossible to destroy via excessive overclocking, as it has thermal protection. It can overclock much farther, basically. It too, should have an aftermarket heatsink/fan combination, which I shall list.
Swiftech MCX478 (about $70)
AVC Sunflower (about $35)
Remember, Arctic Silver.
As for mainboards for the P4, I recommend only ones based on the i850 chipset (using RDRAM). Extreme overclocks have been done with the ABIT TH7II, but unless you're going extreme, I recommend an Asus P4T-E. If you buy a P4T-E, I recommend buying from
Outside Loop, as they guarantee that their P4T-E boards will have superior ICS clock generators, which allow for more memory overclocking. If you desperately want DDR SDRAM, the Asus P4B266 is a very good overclocker.
Sometimes when overclocking, the system could become unstable. This is usually one of two issues: a thermal issue, or a voltage issue. If it is a thermal issue, buy better cooling or reduce your overclock. If it is not a thermal issue, it is probably a voltage issue. Some mainboards allow you to actually raise the voltage in small increments, which can fix stability problems. Be careful when doing this, as too much voltage can destroy your core--even a Pentium 4.
I recommend getting the front side bus as high as possible, and even lowering the multiplier to get a higher front side bus (and memory) clock, as this is more beneficial when coupled with a CPU overclock than a CPU overclock alone. However, your AGP bus and your PCI bus run off of a multiple of the fsb. Be sure to adjust multipliers as necessary, or prepare for fried expansion cards.
Memory can also be overclocked, but never overclock memory more than the fsb, as it is worthless.
I hope this helps.
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