AMD 970 Phenom II x4 factory settings question

Hi, I have an M4A78t-e motherboard that did not boot initially with auto settings. I had to go in a set the CPU settings manually. However, I have only been able to stabilize the system up to 2.8 Ghz. I looked this up further to find that the while the 970 is advertised at 3.5 Ghz, its actually only at 2.8 Ghz. AMD said something about having to use turbo to achieve the advertised speed of 3.5 Ghz.The technology that they described was horribly confusing. I was wondering if anyone better understood how to manually set the 970 to 3.5 Ghz. I did achieve getting the CPU to max out to about 3.2 Ghz but that was with a 1.6 Vcore voltage, which is .2 higher than the 1.4V factory settings (which should be at 3.5 Ghz).