Ok so there is Artifacts for cPUs and crashes for memory, but is there any signs that a CPU could be overheating? My HSF is hot,but not nearly as hot as my touching one of my western digitals, I have to take my finger off the hard drive in 2 seconds or it feels like my finger will be burned. Reason Im asking, is that for some reason, SpeedFan nor MBM nor Everest reads my CPU temp at all.

Your HSF should not be more than warm to the touch. Artifacts are more of a result of videocard instability than CPU overheating.

Usually, when the CPU overheats, it gives you a BSOD then either resets or turns itself off. Most motherboards have built in, default enabled "shut down temps" to prevent damage to the CPU.

What kind of motherboard do you have? I would be more concerned about the hard-drive being hot to the touch. Is Speedfan not picking up your hard drive temp either? Most of my hard drives are substantially cooler than the motherboard and bus temperatures. As MrCodeDude said, you will get blue screens and general instability. If it gets too bad you will see things shut down, in most cases, especially if you are lucky. In more primitive configurations it was quite easy to melt things down if you had a CPU fan stop working, for example.

Anyways, would be curious as to your motherboard, CPU and hard drive types.