I personally like the higher performing 2 cores over the slower 4 cores. Looks like there only about $25 difference on newegg though. If your going to be using applications that can take advantage of the 4 cores then the q6600 is the way to go. What sense is it to have the 2 extra cores that dont get used while the 2 that do dont perform as well as the dual core setup. I have the E8400 and I would go with that for now unless you have proof that a bunch of your importance applications can use the 4 cores.