ive heard of people hitting 2.6 on stock cooling and staying under 45C at full load... (people tend to lie though, but expect to hit at least 2.4 with stock cooler, and good airflow) im not sure if this is 100% true but it is for video cards and some processors, but say they manufactor 3800's but the chips isnt stable at that speed (2.4ghz) theyll downgrade it to a 3200/3000... i dont think this is as common on venices but just know that u may get one like that, but even with one of those youll be able to hit 2.2 (speed of 3500) pretty easily... venices are one of the best overclocking cpu for AMD... and yea id say go for the cheaper one, theres a difference between them but i duno it is, probably somthing to do with the warrenty or somthing along those lines, but the physical cpu seems exactly the same...