[Taeric]

Welcome to the fourms.

Idle temps don't have a lot of bearing in determining how far you can go. Load temps are the issue. As was stated above, 65°C is the maximum recommended load temp for Prescott. I try to keep mine well below that, but if you're just gaming for fairly limited time periods (a few hours here and there), I wouldn't be overly concerned.

One thing you may be able to do to lower temps is to manually overclock everything. Using the percent overclock options provided, the BIOS sets, among other things, the CPU voltage (vcore). If you handle all of the settings yourself, you may find that you can run stable at a lower vcore, which will helps with temps. Run CPU-Z, Everest, or a similar program to see what your current settings are, and then apply those in the BIOS. Tweak things around a bit, test stability, and go from there. Not only do you have the potential to get better results, you'll also learn a lot about how all of the settings tie together.

 

[Taeric]

One issue is that you're running your RAM at a 3:2 divider, which means that the frequency of your CPU is 50 percent faster than the frequency of your RAM. That will negatively impact your overall system performance. I still suggest going away from the stock overclocking options in the BIOS and handling everything manually. Although it's not certain that your RAM can run at 240 MHz, it's worth a shot to try to get it there. You have two good sets of data already. Just save screen shots of the various tabs of CPU-Z for each standard overclock (at least the memory and SPD tabs in addition to the CPU tab you already have). Try applying those same settings manually in the BIOS. Once you have that stable, try upping the RAM frequency by reducing the divider, loosening RAM timings, and upping the vdimm. Your system will be much better off for it.

I know I'm tossing around a lot of terms, but you're very close to having a killer OC. The chipset on your motherboard is very OC friendly. For more information on doing things manually, read the overclocking and RAM guides linked in my signature. I think they'll give you a lot of confidence to do things manually.

Also, to improve gaming performance, you can OC your video card. Run a program called ATI Tool. It will find the maximum stable memory and core frequencies for your particular card. I have the AIW version of your card, and OCed on stock cooling to 530/590 core/memory (from stock 500/500). That definitely makes a difference in gaming.

 

[Taeric]

I always set mine just a bit below (3-5 MHz). Be sure to run the 3D window for a while after setting the core and memory frequencies to ensure the two working together at higher speeds don't produce artifacts.

The BIOS on your board should be darn near identical to the BIOS on mine as they are both Asus boards with the same chipset. If you have any specific BIOS questions, let me know. The main things to look for are CPU and RAM frequencies, CPU and RAM voltages, RAM timings, and AGP/PCI frequencies.