I must be going something wrong. Every time I use Afterburner or trixx to move the Memory clock
at all (anything below its default) the whole system freezes and I have to hard reset.

I had the same problem initially and determined it was the full Catalyst Control Center running and not allowing this to happen.
disable it from running on start up and the problem goes away. Enable it again and the who system freezes pretty much instanly
http://i.imgur.com/IhPi1.png