HELP! i7 990x N00b overclock FAIL! OK! OK! I need help!

The way that is more mainstream to overclock is definitely to to it in the BIOS. As far as what you are going to have to adjust, I can't help you there since you're BIOS will be different then mine and overclocking on my chip is different than yours. Prime95 is gonna allow you to, after you've overclocked, to put all cores of the CPU up to 100% and stress test it. If you BSOD then your overclock isn't stable. Once you've adjusted everything in the BIOS and you can run Prime95 for a good number of hours (the more the better) it'll let you know that you can use your computer with the overclock as an everyday machine.

Essentially in this case yes that's the point of Prime95, to really stress the CPU. In this case, being that you've just recently overclocked, there is a 99% chance that the BSOD you might get is because of your OC not being stable. You may have to give the CPU more voltage or ease the clock speed down depending on your settings. I suggest the "blend" preset.

In response to what clock speed you should aim for, go for something modest, especially if this is your first overclock. For example my chip is clocked at 3.4 GHz stock. From other peoples experiences I've seen 2600Ks reach 4.7-ish GHz pretty consistently. I went for 4.2 GHz (I've since then bumped up to 4.4). So I didn't go for the extreme, just what would improve performance without creating a space heater out of my CPU. Look around online for settings people used for their 990X overclocks, yours will be incredibly different then mine.

A good starting point for a first generation i7 would be either 4 GHz or 4.2 GHz. Since the chip you are working with has an unlocked multiplier that gives you more breathing room for how to approach your ultimate goal. If you want to just hit the speed you’re striving for before fine tuning your energy efficiency, I would recommend going with this (apologies for not having the proper setting names, I don’t that that exact board and I’m away from my overclocking rig):

Multiplier: 21x
Base Clock: 200 MHz
Voltage: ~1.3 Volts
QPI: ~1.32 Volts
DRAM: ~1.65 Volts (This is assuming the DRAM voltage is the default 1.65 voltage that x58 uses, otherwise set the voltage to the default voltage of the DRAM. My ASUS board doesn’t allow for odd numbers so you might be left choosing either 1.64 or 1.66. If you get a warning for setting it to 1.66 solts it’s alright: as long as you’re within .4-.5 volts of the QPI voltage you should be fine)

From there you want to run Prime95 on all the threads, watching the temperature while all the threads are loaded. If you get a blue screen, use this guide here for help in correcting the blue screen. If you don’t want to go all the way to that thread, here is what you need from the thread (Thank you HaMMeR=GoM= and anyone else that contributed to this BSOD list):

BSOD Codes for i7 x58 chipset
0x101 = increase vcore
0x124 = increase/decrease QPI/VTT first, if not increase/decrease vcore...have to test to see which one it is
0x0A = unstable RAM/IMC, increase QPI first, if that doesn't work increase vcore
0x1A = Memory management error. It usually means a bad stick of Ram. Test with Memtest or whatever you prefer. Try raising your Ram voltage
0x1E = increase vcore
0x3B = increase vcore
0x3D = increase vcore
0xD1 = QPI/VTT, increase/decrease as necessary, can also be unstable Ram, raise Ram voltage
0x9C = QPI/VTT most likely, but increasing vcore has helped in some instances
0x50 = RAM timings/Frequency or uncore multi unstable, increase RAM voltage or adjust QPI/VTT, or lower uncore if you're higher than 2x
0x109 = Not enough or too Much memory voltage
0x116 = Low IOH (NB) voltage, GPU issue (most common when running multi-GPU/overclocking GPU)
0x7E = Corrupted OS file, possibly from overclocking. Run sfc /scannow and chkdsk /r

The idea behind programs such as Prime95, LinX/Intel Burn Test (another good CPU stress test, here is a link to LinX) is that an unstable CPU will eventually output incorrect or corrupt information. The problem of an unstable CPU is that it can run without causing major problems because the operating system can correct for small situations in non stressful situations. Depending on the unstableness of the CPU, the CPU can run for weeks without showing red flags of instability if it’s not being stressed. These programs are designed to put the CPU in heavy usage situations where errors from instability will result in big problems, thus resulting in anything from inconsistent data or the entire system locking up and blue screening.

If you decided to take the dirty approach of hitting the desired clock speed, your next task should be to lower voltages until you can't push them down anymore without introducing instability. As far as the multiplier goes, typically people use the multiplier to achieve clock speeds at lower voltages since you don't have to raise the base clock to get the same frequency. The good thing about this is that while the base clock controls the frequency of many of the components in the chip, the multiplier will only affect the component it is labeled for, in this case it's the main CPU frequency. The benefit is that you can take the CPU clock speed higher without having to push the frequency of other components such as the QPI, thus reducing stress on these components which in return can result in lower necessary voltages in order to maintain stability.
Edited by D-Dave - 3/8/12 at 5:20pm

Or you know listen to this guy for a much more detailed explanation and more help haha

This is why no one has responded. There are a lot of good resources here and if you don't like them, or don't understand them, your best bet would be to reference one of them and ask specific questions regarding what you don't understand. Otherwise no one is going to tell you, step by step, what to do to overclock your particular gear. The technorati help those who help themselves...

Shoot! Gab195 quoted me before I could finish doing all my ninja edits . I also forgot to mention a few CPU monitoring programs that the OP could use: RealTemp, SpeedFan and HWMonitor are all quite popular ones. A good practice to implement is using more than one monitoring tool so that you have redundancy in temperature data (sometimes monitoring tools can differ in their reports).