Part 2: Heating:
The faster a CPU’s clock cycle, the more energy it uses and the more heat it will produce. Make sure your current CPU cooling solution can handle it. Generally, OEM’s (like dell) put a heatsink plus fan to cool the CPU. These fans are cheap and only are effective at stock clock speeds. They are not suitable for o/c’ing. There are many ways to cool a CPU and I will discuss some of them.

Air:
Used by most OEMs. OEM air coolers are not good for o/c’ing. After-market coolers can be very effective at cooling o/c’ed CPU’s depending on how good they are. Good air coolers for o/c’ing use copper heatsinks and a fast powerful 120 mm fan. Ability to overclock with air is limited though. Generally, even the best heatsinks with fans are fairly cheap (around 50 USD). It is highly practical.

Water/liquid:
Used by most overclockers. Uses a water block attached to a heatsink to cool the CPU. The water is usually connected via piping to a pump and a reservoir; a radiator is also included in the system to cool the coolant. Generally, water is used as the coolant, but other coolants can be used. Ability to overclock with water/liquid is fairly decent; in addition, the PC is much more silent. Costs are higher than air, though the cost is not staggering. It costs more depending on how much heat the system needs to remove and also if you want to cool other components as well (like the chipset or vid card). (Anywhere from 100 USD to 2000 USD for kits, custom jobs can go higher).

Heatpipe:
Generally used with another method. All heat pipes do is move heat. They have no ability to remove heat. Practicality depends on situation.

Peltier:
Used by stupid people. It uses obscene amounts of electricity to remove heat. It’s not very efficient and rather complicated to setup. It generally used in combination with water or heatpipes. It can however cool the CPU below ambient temperature. This means higher clock speeds can be reached than with air or water like the aforementioned 5 ghz. Costs are high both for equipment and for maintenance. This thing eats power faster than you can say "Holy *^%" when looking at the power bill. Impracticality is written all over this type of cooling.

Vapochill/cascade cooling/vapor phase:
Used really serious overclockers. It uses the same tech that your refrigerator uses to cool the CPU. Temperatures will go below 0*C. You can overclock a lot with this type of cooling. It does use quite a lot of power (not nearly as much as peltiers). This type of cooling is similar in cooling ability to peltiers. If you can afford this kind of cooling, its actually somewhat practical. It is however prohibitively expensive. (700 USD to 5000 USD, although stuff that costs higher than 3000 is usually a custom job).

Liquid Nitro:
Used by insane overclockers who have been shocked one too many times by the power supply. CPU temperatures are generally -200*C. You can reach insane clock speeds with this cooling. It’s not practical. It’s effect is generally temporary (unless you want to constantly pour nitrogen into the CPU heatsink container.). It’s pretty expensive and complicated as you need to do most of it yourself and will need to special order parts. (1000 USD to the size of your wallet).

Submersion:
The entire computer case is submerged in non-electrically conductive coolant and then cooled to -90*C or below. Used by…well, I’ve only heard of a few people who have tried it. All of those people have fat wallets and probably suffer from some sort of mental disease. (5000 USD to…well, use your imagination) Its overkill to the extreme and practicality should never be associated with it.

BTW, prices are generalizations. You may find cheaper or more expensive products that fit into each category.

EXCELLENT guide with extensive information on just about everything to do with overclocking... great work, AP! 

Must be made sticky!  8)

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Its for real. I even wanted to do it once, and then a I figured I might as well save the money for a new computer.
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20031230/index.html[
Tom's hardware isn't the only whose done it before btw. The CPU can servive for as long a you want. Its short term only b/c you have to refill the nitrogen after it runs out.

I read that nitro cooled components can fracture when expanding from their extreme chill after all the fun is over.   

The submersion sounds way cool! Especially if it were done in a clear tank with some eerie green lighting...... Muahahahaha!   8)

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Its not actually that extreme, but I'm not sticking anything in liquid nitro. I actually had liquid nitro in my high school's chemistry lab to play with and it takes a while for an object to become brittle (actual time depends on what object). The instructor put rubber bands in and they froze and when dropped smashed like glass, but he dipped a banana in it for a second or so and then ate it. You would have to soak it in nitro for it to become brittle.

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As long as you slowlywarm up the components, you'll be fine. If you finish o/c'ing and then just remove the nitro and throw the components into your closet at room temp, yeah that will happen, but if you ease the temp back up, everything will be fine.