Overclocking allows you to speed up your computer at expense of its life (shortening it).  If you upgrade the cooling it won't affect the life (depending how much you o/c by).

I will use the processor as an example.  If you were to change the fsb (front side bus) speed say by 5MHz you would get an increase in the MHz of your processor by the multiplier*fsb increase.  The multiplier is set by the motherboard and changes from processor to processor.  At a point you will find the increase in MHz will cause the system to become unstable, to remedy this an increase of the voltage input into the CPU is required.  This is the VCore voltage.  This stabilises the processor.  However this causes an increase in heat.  Without adequate cooling the CPU will burn up and not recover (affectively dead).  If you were to up the fsb of the CPU it may do it but the RAM may not, assuming the RAM is in-sync with the CPU (say the fsb is 333 and RAM is 333 for it to be in-sync).  RAM is very reluctant to go further than it's stock setting is.  RAM burns up very easily.  Keeping the RAM in-sync with the CPU is vital to prevent any bottle necking affects that can happen.  Often new RAM is required in-order to o/c the processor.

You can use software to do o/c'ing but i would not use it.  They are very un-reliable and often mess up your system.  Using the bios to o/c the system works much better and i would recommend using that if you were to o/c.  However i don't recommend o/c'ing the system unless you are prepared to pay the money to replace the part/ live without a computer for however long it takes for you to replace it. 

In addition to o/c'ing you may need to upgrade the PSU so to cope with the increase in power usage.  If you don't it may burn up itself and take your mobo with it. 

Graphics card o/c'ing is done using a program.  There are many available on the net.  RivaTuner is just one of them.  Again i recommend upgrading the cooling before trying this.

I don't recommend o/c'ing.  I feel that if you want more performance it is better to upgrade, or get a new system depending on what your current setup is now.

o/c = overclock
mobo=motherboard.

No problem!

What are your current specs right now? Or the specs of the system you are considering o/c'ing?

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erm no offense but anyone who wants to overclock that beast ^^^^^ is nuts. please tell me thats a computer you would love to have rather than have at the moment coz that would cost some dollar alright !

as for overclocking i havent read the replies as they are stupendously long and i am lazy but i bet they all say DONT OVERCLOCK UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING and accept that any gurantee's are instantly void when u damage a component through overclocking

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Oi! I take offence! (not - lol...) Thats exactly what ive done, exept minus the dubious bit. (I think - whats that burning smell!)
Dan G   

Go on O-clock it  Im sure you can gain some more performance  U know you want tooooo