er....790fx w/ ddr3 is "budget"? maybe to a longtime intel'er, but greenjackets expect a bit more for the dollar don't they? considering the myriad 790gx solutions out there which boast impressive VRM cooling (which is nearly as important as NB/SB cooling for AMD), i'd say the gx is a far more prevalent "budget" solution...
now. i get that you're going for highest clocks and all, but at least in the case of the x2 550, i have to say you're practically overvolting for nothing. i personally own this processor. and the mobo in which it sits is the epitome of "budget" (foxconn a7gm-s, 780g, earliest revision. was cheap even by the earliest 780g standards! and technically doesn't even support the x2 550!)...and passed 24 hours prime stable, never breaking 50c, on air, at 200 x 19 (3.8ghz)...with stock voltage!!!
i stopped there, because as a "budget minded overclocker", i knew that part of my "budget" was the power savings, and the longevity of my components. and really, what is another 100-200mhz going to add to my real world computing experience? will i save 22 seconds on a 2 hour video encode, at the price of increased heat and decreased longevity? is the 22 seconds worth the extra few bucks on my power bill, or its tax on my power supply? and for that matter, is 200mhz more worth having either to buy a new power supply, or sacrifice a couple fans, or worse...hard drives?
i'm not the only one with an x2 550 to've reached such speeds on stock volts, either. i've even seen a few unlocked, running 3.8ghz stock volts on all 4 cores. granted, they had much nicer mobo's than mine, but their stories fit the "budget" concept of this article as well. though, to be honest, the examples of this i've seen have largely been 790gx, ddr2 based. one even, much as my own, isn't technically even supported by the mobo...
as to the intel side of things, i must chime in with the others and say q8200 fits this article only in budget, never in worthiness. if AMD was given a budget of $250 for it's quad representative, intel deserved at least as much. it strikes me that this choice was an attempt to dispel the forever growing belief that tom's has been intel-biased since the takeover, and while its charming to believe such a theory, it doesn't change the bare journalistic sloppiness, as even the blue fans have echoed their general distaste for the lowly q8200.
ages ago, it seems, i read my first tom's article...the title was something like "socket 7 - sound for years to come", or somesuch. remember when the blue and the green shared sockets?
how far we've come, friends...
now, criticisms aside...i do appreciate the effort and enthusiasm with which this article was written. i've long said that the term "enthusiast" should not apply only to the "top-shelf" overclockers, but to any and every one of us who pursues performance above and beyond what we paid for. "enthusiast" means "posessed by enthusiasm". we must all seek whatever knowledge we can discover, in an effort to feed our enthusiastic pursuit of greater performance...at as little cost to us as possible!
really, i do applaud this article, if not entirely for content, than entirely its enthusiasm...