Power Plans? dangerous to change?

Ok so when i was checking out the screen saver area, i noticed a thing that said 'change power settings'....when i go in there, there is 3 options
Balanced
Power Saver
Performance....


my computer is as follows
TX650psu
ati radeon 4850HD
4gb ddr3 (4x1)(stock/sadface)
core i7 920
vista 64x



i just solved a 6 month long heat problem, where my graphics card has been running @ 110*C....it now runs @ 83*c (maxed). I am just worried that if i change the power thing to performance, i could hurt something in my computer....anyways, i don't understand how more 'power' is going to add performance, unless the computer is barely getting enough juice to begin with and thus, not able to run all the features of the gpu or something...thanks in advance.