<< What I meant to ask in the first place was that unlike P4 mobo, Athlon mobo measures cpu temp from the exterior of the cpu whereas P4 mobo gets the reading from the cpu core.
So does that reading represent the actual cpu temp? >>
First, some Athlon Mobos CAN read the die (true CPU) temperature -- provided they have an XP and are properly jumpered -- just as P4 motherboards do.
Most, though, read the temperature from a sensor below the CPU, in the center of  the CPU socket.  This temperature is extrapolated to the presumed temperature at the die, using an empirical relationship (the AMD site has pdf documents that describe the process).  One problem: the relationship is not the same for ceramic chips (older Athlons) as for the new organic carrier XP chips.
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