OCing the Front side bus (for better RAM)

I have a pretty much stock system and the idea of overclocking scares me.

Here is what I have.

Processor: E5200 Wolfdale 2.5ghz with the stock retail cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP43-UD3L
Ram: G.Skill 2x2gb 1066
PSU: 450w Corsair (not sure if this is relevant)

Anyway, the E5200 only supports an 800 FSB. The ram will run at 1066. I know with stock cooling I'm kind of limited in what I can do as far as overclocking.

Here are some temp stats thanks to Lm-Sensors in Ubuntu (I also run Windows 7)

The system during normal use barely and rarely breaks 40c. Right now I'm at 37c for the sensors and the same for both cores. From what I understand, this is relatively cool for a system. I haven't gotten her under load yet. I also haven't run her in the dead of summer where my skin starts melting off.

I think the first three things I have to ask before how I go about doing this are:

1. Is it possible for me to bump my FSB up to accept the 1066?

2. Is it worth it? My forays into OCing are extremely limited. What kind of performance boost would I see, if any?

3. At what detriment would this boost be? Would I have to sacrifice something in order to obtain using the memory's full potential? How do the pros weigh against the cons?

Let's start there and see how we progress.

As always, thanks for your time.

Couple more points:

don;t let overclocking scare you. A day or two spent reading and asking questions then a little time 'experimenting' will soon ease any fears. Yes, you will get system crashes. That's inevitable and a part of overclocking. Don't let them worry you.

The pro's (imo) out weigh the cons by a hundred to one. Even if you go for a mild (say 20%) overclock, you'll see a difference. And best of all, it's free!

You temps are fine and the E5200 has been known to go up over 4GHz. Getting 3GHz - 3.2GHz shouldn't be a major issue on air cooling.
Your mobo supports FSB 1333MHz so you have plenty of room to play. However, it does not appear to support 1066MHz RAM, so you may be limited to operating your current memory modules at 800MHz. A good overclock will more than compensate for this.

Thank you for the replies. I think I understand a little better but before making any changes, let me make sure.

I thought this is how it works...

The front side bus is on the motherboard. The CPU controls the FSB. The ram's speed is dependent on the CPU's control of the FSB. Is this correct? Is this correct?

For example, even though I have 1066 speed ram in my machine, it will never run faster than 800 because my CPU is set for 800 stock.

So, now what do I do?

Now I'm a bit confused...

Here read this:
GUIDE: Overclocking On EP/P35-DS3L

It details all the settings you need. The guide works for all most all Gigabyte boards as the setting names are smiler and their function is the same.


For 3Ghz:
FSB: 240
SPD: 2
Multiplier: 12.5
Voltage(s): Unknown, you have to figure this out.

For 3.6Ghz:
FSB: 288
SPD: 2
Multiplier: 12.5
Voltage(s): Unknown, you have to figure this out.

Also, at stock or until you go above FSB 267 you won't need to OC RAM. There is no REAL WORLD performance gain with faster RAM.