I spent some of this weekend playing with this board and an E8500 under phase change. Still using the 1001 bios.

Even with a couple of fans pointing at the Northbridge, the highest FSB I could get the system to boot into windows at was 485 (1980). Memory latency takes a big hit once you go above 450, so the performance hit above there isn't worth taking. With the fans, the heatsink on the Northbridge doesn't actually feel that hot to touch (i.e. no burns on my fingertips yet!), but as voltage gets even a little above 1.5 bios reports northbridge temps going into 60s.

On my board, no amount of playing with (i.e. raising) voltages and slackening off memory timings could get this thing to boot above 500FSB. This a bit fustrating because it seems like this E8500 chip has more to give, but I am FSB limited by the board at 450 X 9.5 = 4.3ghz. Meanwhile my QX9650 needs lots of volts to run stable at 450X10. Ho hum...