If you want to OC really well, you have to spend good money, anathema to saving money on the CPU by going athlon II(as opposed to Phenom II). There have been varying experiences with overclocking that CPU. From 5-35% stable overclocks, do some research on what Mobos are being used in the situations where the chip won't OC well and try to avoid them. I don't think a $180-200 mobo is absolutely necassary for a decent OC, but if you don't do some research first, you may end up with a combination that will be dissapointing.