Granite3 :
Do Not Lap your CPU!
Not only does it void your warranty, should something go wrong, but there is no need to do so on this chip. It runs plenty cool without an expensive aftermarket heat sink.
Upping the multi, vs the fsb, will give you faster speed, and no additional heat generation.
I just upped mine to 15.5 with everything on auto! 29% oc or so, with one or two strokes, and no chance of damage to the system.
Then get clocking!
I assume you misread my post, but would still say the same things about my advice. I said lap the heatsink on the cooler side, not the processors IHS. Then I said remove the IHS. Not only is this extremely easy, it will help you dissipate heat generated by some of the most extreme overclocks. It's an advanced technique used in overclocking, that anyone can do at home with an assortment of sandpaper, and removing the IHS requires nothing more than a steady hand, a pack of smokes, and a thin razor!
My processor idles at ~14C at 1.425 volts. I have the Asus 92mm Silent Square Evo (Took out the 92mm and put in a 120mm) and it struggles to get above 35C on load. This is at 1.425V! I haven't yet been able to get the maximum stable overclock (current max stable 3.25GHz 24 hours Orthos) on this chip because my ram has been holding me back. I recently picked up a nice stick of 512 from Crucial, and I expect to get over 3.5GHz on this chip, with having no stability or heat problems on air!
I would not put much weight in the theory about using the multi to give you your overclock because it generates less heat. Running extremely high FSB (clock reference) speeds will result in a rise in temperatures on your northbridge/southbridge, but we're talking extremely high numbers here, not the ones you need to overclock this chip. Running a 300+ FSB (clock reference) on my M3A32-MVP I noticed a 6F thermal difference on my heatpipe over the southbridge.... not enough to matter.
I would suggest, to get the most performance on your machine, a happy median of ram/processor overclock would be the best. Err on the side of higher processor, because with the K8 and K10 architecture you see more performance with processor speed, compared to higher ram speeds. However, if you are doing memory intensive operations, you will see your ram latencies go way down with higher clock speeds.
With AMDs current architecture one of the highest differences between Intel/AMD is the way AMD references the memory, resulting in lower latencies. I do not see any reason to neglect our strength, and not overclock the ram a bit to really make this shine!