Venice, Stepping and Oc Database

[renzokuken]

Hiyas,
Long time reader, first time poster

Well, its 9:00am and I have an exam that I am completely not ready for (because I've been building computers all week) at 1:00pm, so I'll make this quick.

First, hasn't anyone noticed how all the CBBLE stepping chips have completely pwned in regards to OC'ing and those that aren't CBBLE all have **A* stepping? I'm having a really hard time trying to work out what the key factor is in regards to how high a CPU will clock. I have the opportunity to buy any one of the following stepping:

(unfortunately(?) all are LBBLE chips)

0518CPEW
0518CPAW
0518EPCW
0519BPCW

Now you can see why I'm trying real hard to narrow down what the key factor is in regards to OC'ing. There's only 1 of those CPAW cpu's left. Because it's a **A* cpu, does that mean it will clock higher? Or does it all come down to the week it was made? (coincidentally, all 3000+ week 17, 12, and 4 cpu's are **A*). So which one is it? Should I buy that CPAW? I really need at least 2.85ghz from my cpu (when I decide on one) so I can max out my ram and have it running 1:1 at ~318HTT.

On another observation, it seems Australia (where I live) is getting their CPU's from the German Fab. plant. Whenever I google these stepping codes all I get is a slew of german forums with, what seems to be, pretty poor OC'ing results. You can imagine how much fun it is wading through all the "hoger klokken's" and "spreken net's" all the while desperately trying to find some OC'ing figures.

So anyways, in closing, whats the deal?

My Rig:
DFI LANPARTY NF4 ULTRA-D
1GB OCZ PLAT. REV. 2
74GB RAPTOR
DUAL 21" MONITOR
POWERCOLOR X800XL
NO CPU! (YET)

renzokuken7 - Lv 216 Clan Agent, Anarchy Online