I have a Gateway 831GM <specs> and I was wondering if I can overclock the CPU if I replace the CPU on it now, which is a 3.0GHz, or would I have to get a new motherboard?

And on another note, I am trying to encode movies and stuff into HD Quality and it seems to take forever to complete.  A 328 MB TV show takes 5hr and 24 minutes to complete.  I am looking at a new pentium d processor but i dont know which speed will be sufficient enough to complete these tasks.  Could someone give me a recommendation on which Processor speed to look for?

Thanks for the tip and I will be looking into that.  I have changed my mind about overclocking a pentium D 805 thanks to you .  I think changing the motherboard would be pretty frustrating anyways.

Does the HS/F that comes with the CPU provide enough cooling for it to multitask or will I have to buy a better HS/F?  and would I be able to get someone to install the CPU onto my computer, like Geek Squad, because I'm a little weary about installing new parts due to a lack of space?

But interesting post, nonetheless.  Didn't even know about Core 2 Duo!

So I would have to update my Motherboard anyways to get a Core 2 Duo onto my system right?
I currently have an Intel D915GAG Mobo with Intel Chipset i915/i915G

same with me but I don't think any Motherboard offers 184-pin(i think that's what it is) DDR2 3200 slots.  See I recently bought 2 GB of Corsair XMS memory, so it doesn't look too promising

that sucks.  I guess I'm going to stick with P4 w/HT then.  What processor speed is sufficient for HD Encoding on a P4 w/HT?

This is my motherboard: http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/ag/ag_proc.htm

I don't think I will be stuck at 3.0GHz if what it says in the link is correct.  It says the high supported processor is 670 @ 3.8GHz.

But I will look at the link you gave me.  (I'm sorry for taking so much of your time, but put it this way, you saved me from upgrading my cpu to a pentium d :p)

I'll just give you my CPU-Z stats...
----------------------
  CPU-Z version 1.24.0
----------------------

CPUID Output
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Number of CPUs         2 (1 Physical)

CPU #1
APIC ID            0
Name            Intel Pentium 4
Code name         Prescott
Specification         Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
Family/Model/Stepping      F43
Extended Family/Model      0/0
Package            LGA775
Technology         0.09µ
Instructions Sets      MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, x86-64
Clock Speed         3000.0 MHz
Clock multiplier      x15.0
Front Side Bus Frequency   200.0 MHz
Bus Speed         800.0 MHz
L1 Data Cache         16 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L1 Trace Cache         12 Kµops, 8-way set associative
L2 Cache         2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64 Bytes line size
L2 Speed         3000.0 MHz (Full)
L2 Location         On Chip
L2 Data Prefetch Logic      yes
L2 Bus Width         256 bits

I have a bios option when I restart my computer but is there a way to get it through C:/windows?

Is there a way to tell me what I need to look for to tell if it has overclocking options?  I wanna know what to do before restarting my computer.

Sorry for taking so long.  My computer didn't want to shutdown and I had to shut it down manually.  I didn't find any overclocking options.  I only found ways to enable/disable certain drives and crap.

Only if I could return my Corsair XMS RAM and buy a 2GB Package that supports the Mobo I am trying to get.

ok i dont know IF amc fully answered it but there is no way to overclock a gateway computer while your using htat motherbaord. its a intel co desinged board and doesnt allow for overclocking. You probally wont be able to replace it because i think gateway uses a custom motherboard format.

As far as video encoding goes its going to take a while if your doing HD quality  it takes a long time. If you want faster your going to have to go and get a dual core computer.

Emachines did the same thing :\

they do that so you dont destroy the computer, its actually a good thing for them and most people.

just open up ur computer and look at the psu specs. 
You could try using ur same hard drive with the same os but sometimes that doesnt not work due to driver issues...etc Especially since that is a factory installed OS