Thank you for the reply. You are right about the Phenom 8650 being first gen and not II, 'twas a slip of the kb.
The post you directed me to however, didnt really seem to result in a compelling conclusion. The AMD is a bit cheeper and better for multitasking. This chap wants to build a gaming machine though... If he hasnt gotten one yet, and he waits another week, the E7200s and even E8400s will drop even more, then there will not be any competition.
As long as he sticks with a Nvidia GTX260, and goes with whatever processor/motherboard he thinks is affordable, he will have a very very nice gaming rig, imo.