thank you everyone for your replies, and for your detailed information Johan regarding the socket and cooling of the socket.
the temps straightened right up after i changed the air direction and added my beastly panaflow fan lol (my PC now resembles a vacuum cleaner, wouldn't be the first time). while digging in my box of electronics stuff though, i came across a little 40mm fan i used to use for active cooling on my northbridge. i went ahead and pointed it at the VRM for extra measure.
i have finally hit what i'm thinking is my maximum stable(ish) overclock. it does pass prime but eventually a couple of cores do drop out. at least the PC isn't hard locking or anything like that. i think if i hadn't already surpassed the 500 reboots mark i'd keep trying lol (i'm kidding but it sure feels like it!) and i do feel i could manage to tweak everything just right to get it totally stable at this speed since it's so close.
i certainly am not going to run at this speed all the time, but here's my final result (until i get my new parts in the mail and do this whole process over again lol)
i also included a pic of my little 40mm fan blowing on my VRM
