Hey 20mm - I'm pretty new to this computer nitty gritty and i really can't answer your vcore questions. I can tell you that i recently bought a 3.4 prescott and it took me days of research and trial and error to figure out my cooling, (much thanks to everyone on this board). What it finally boiled down to was my plain jane computer case with one damn fan in the front plus the stock cpu HSF and PSU fan. I have rebuilt my computer before but i always figured throw in whatever and let it rip. After i installed my prescott i read some posts on heat and downloaded speedfan which matched the MSI temp software. Well needless to say 65C idle and, yes, 85C under load for as long as it took me to get to the menu in HL2. For some reason i still wanted to hang onto my old case, sub-consciencely, so i bought a vantec tornado. Well that lasted about 15 mins, because that was all the 69db i could handle, my temps were lower, i think 40C idle but still 60-65C under load. After much more research i finally realized my problem was my case, especially looking at everyones sigs. So i bought an Aerocool case with the 120mm fans and the 80mm on the side and a dual 80mm pci slot fan and my new PSU has 2 fans and a new 90mm fan for my HSF. Now i am looking at case temps 25-30C and idle temps 44-46C and under load no more than 50C. Those temps are still up there but not for a prescott. Could the vcore be the problem? Possibly, but from my lesson learned the hard way massive amounts of airflow are needed to keep temps down. That's my prescott experiance i hope it helps you or someone else that reads this cause if it wasnt for these forums i'd be SOL.