system crashes constantly when gaming at overclocked speeds of 3.0g and above. i am not sure if i have all the settings in bios set correctly?

I suppose this is your revised thread, but you still haven't told us your settings and system specs. The 780i are a pain to OC with, so chances are you are one of the many having issues OCing it.

q9450@8x375.0 2x2G ddr2 800 @450.0 9800gtx cpu vcore 1.33 fsb 1.29 dram 1.85 i've had it up to 3.5 but it is not stable it ran ok at 3.2 but still crashed when playing bioshock or recording with clone dvd so i slowed it down to 3.0 some problem. thinking about getting 790ultra or x48?

I recently got an XFX 780i , stock voltages 1.4 FSB and 1.2 vcore 9X400 for 3.6 on my E8400 no problems, but for some reason it wont budge past 1650 FSB, it just crashes after boot, right when my vid card starts it's OC, it's odd but I'm happy with 3.6Ghz.

Currently, Nvidia chipsets are regarded as poor to us OCing enthusiast. There are also multiple problems with the board, as reviewed by Anandtech. Apparently it's better now, but there still are issues: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=460

The fastest way to solve the issue is to go with the Intel chipset. If you do not want Crossfire, P45 is your best solution. If you do however, X48 is the way to go, although it has been reported that it's OCing capability is much lower than the P45.

The other way is to spend a lot of time getting your system stable. With a Vdroop so large, I'd say start with a Vcore of 1.400 in the bios. It should droop down to 1.300v~, which is below the max safe limit of 1.4v. Then set the ram to it's rated settings, linked or unlinked. After than, start playing with the motherboard settings, increasing or decreasing the voltage and such. Perhaps try using different multipliers, it could be that the setting you're trying to do has a hole in it.

i reset the vcore to 1.400 then then played game for an hour or so no problems yet. cpu temp avg 34c might try to up fsb to 400mhz?