Are there any effective ways of seeing what the CPU temperature is
Many motherboard manufacturers have some utilities available on their website for download which can show you your temperatures from Windows.
There's also a generic freeware utility, MotherBoard Monitor, which works with most motherboards. It sits in your systemtray and displays your current CPU temperature. It works with most motherboards, and can be downloaded (among others) from http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311