Mobo Readings wrong? & Barton vs. Thorton

I guess this post has two parts to it. Firstly, is it possible for motherboard readings to be wrong? I recently bought a thorton 2200 cpu/mobo combo for $60 (since it was with a crappy ECS mobo). Playing around with it, I was able to reach 2430 Mhz using an old zalman HS while remaining. This is with FSB @ 180 and a PC2700 Kingston Value RAM and at stock core voltage @ 1.6 V. Temps aren't outrageously high either, 40 C idle. Could the mobo readings be wrong? this OC seems unusually high for the components used, and i would try for more, but i am a little hesitant.

Second thing is comparing this chip (which possible has more headroom w/better cooling) to a poorly OCing Barton (week 3) which does about 2 GHZ flat at a stable 180 FSB. Is the barton's extra 256k of L2 cache enough to offset the 400+ Mhz deficiency as far as performance goes?

^^^ yes alot of motherboards are off by about 10C +/- - espcially abits.

best way i like to tell is physically touch the ehat sink with your hand to get an idea of how hot it is - if u can not keep your finger on it for2 or more seconds - it is tooooooooo hot.

as for # 2, not sure.