It also depends on how often you upgrade your system. Technology changes quickly, and a system can quickly become outdated. For me, I update my systems about every 9 mos to a year, so performance in a few years is really a moot point. About two years ago I was told that the E6420 would be a worth investment. Although it's still capable of a solid 3.2 GHz, it's sat in my junk drawer for over a year.I honestly would go with the Q9450, and thats exactly what I did. The reason behind, is not only will it give excellent performance now, in a couple of years, it will still be giving excellent performance where the dual-core would be bottleknecking.
Both would be good for gaming, but the best dual core gaming is the E8400.
*sigh* You're funny...
He's actually right about that, the E8400 has had most of the best numbers with low volts![]()