You are not in as bad a shape as you think.. Given the time frame you are moving quite fast.. I am still trying to break old habits and get used to the ease of recent Linux. I will still open a terminal to move a folder from one place to another when I could just copy and paste..
GPUOverClockingState= 1 is on and you can change clock speeds, 0 is off and it will always boot with stock speeds..
GPU"2D/3D"ClockFreqs= the first is core clock, the second is memory clock.
NVClock will give you the stock speeds and allow you to test
OC settings, but since it doesn't save them it doesn't do a whole lot of good. Setting them in the rc file will apply them when the driver loads.
After setting the clocks and saving them in the rc file, you will need to log out and back in for the settings to take effect. CTRL+ALT+Backspace, then log back in..