Overclocking the CoreDuo cpus is NOT a risky proposition as long as you don't go for too much. Like I said, look at Tom's and other guides around the net. My chip will actually go 4GHz+, but I dialed it back down to 3, for stability and life span. What kills o/c'd chips is heat and using greater than stock voltage. I had to up the voltage to go to 4, but have the voltage stock at 3. The temp is nice and low, too. I used to love AMD chips, and heck I still bought an ATI (AMD) video card, but the Intel chips just simply outperform them. Add in the ability to o/c them and it's a no brainer.
CPU charts:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/07/16/cpu_charts_2007/
Especially for encoding, Intel is currently stomping on AMD. Hopefully AMD will get back in the game, but it won't be until they release their next line of chips.
