If you're getting a phenom get a 9*50, the "50" as two last digits means it's B3 stepping and has the dumb bugs fixed. Anyway, those aren't great overclockers at all (which is bad).
Is it possible to turn selected cores off in BIOS and see which one of them is the one that clocks lowest, then leave that particular core disabled and go a bit higher? Should be better at least temp-wise... i think.