Degraded system performance - stuttering in games

[Goden]

I apologize if this is in the wrong section, I had no idea where to put this.

First thing first: Specs:
Intel Q8400 OC'ed to 3.5ghz (see below)
Thermaltake 750w PSU
AMD HIS 7770 Ghz-edition GPU
Mobo: MS-7345
Gaming hardrive: OCZ Agility-3 SSD
RAM: DDR2 Patriot 4gb 800mhz

Now the problem(s):

Firstly, I recently acquired a Corsair H80 cooler for my CPU and decided to take a stab at overclocking. I had just recently formatted jumped into a game of Tribes Ascend. The result was a framerate of around 25-40fps and light stuttering increasing to massive stuttering as the game progressed. I defaulted the BIOS and tried again at stock settings and the results were the same.

Secondly, when I was trying to format the Windows 7 installation was moving at the pace of a mummified slug. It took over 20 minutes for some of the conformation windows to pop up. I tried moving, removing, and swapping various components to try and solve the issue but it resulted in nothing. In my previous Windows7 installation, the boot-up time was horrendously long. It took about 15 minutes to get to a full boot. The computer would just sit there and chug.

Please, do not hesitate to ask if you require further information. I would really like to get this resolved!

 

[Goden]

You are only having problems with that game, right?? is your game installed in the HDD or in the SSD? the problem might me the ram because of the high overclock you did, you might have pushed it too far and damaged it

It's the only game that is installed at this point in time, I'll report back when I try others. It's installed on the SSD.

As for the RAM, I've tried this RAM and swapped it out for others I have (after disabling the OC) and the results are the same.

The (old) Win7 install was done on a HDD which is not being used right now. So that is not a factor anymore.