Steps 1 & 2: Qualifying your system, and finding the maximum CPU clock. We'll also do some longer-term stability testing.

Step 3: Finding the maximum memory clock at the best possible timings. Know your memory! Then we'll look at stability in the operating system, which is very different than surviving a benchmark.

Step 4: Balancing memory and CPU clock. We select a safe maximum CPU and memory clock with long-term stability testing. We conclude with benchmarking and some final thoughts.

"What Athlon do I buy?" To begin to answer that question here is a compiled list of all the current platforms and brief outlines for each including my personal recommendations for what's hot and what's not.

A dual core processor is exactly what it sounds like. It is two processor cores on one die essentially like having a dual processor system in one processor.