I need advice.

[looqas]

Dual WILL make you smile, but quad WILL make you feel like The man.

It all depends really if you are into over-clocking at all. I'd go for quad, but I'd bump it up to 3GHz region.

And get Q9450 since it's got a bigger cache (is faster) than the Q9300. And the price difference ain't that big between them.

Honestly there will not be any real benefits in gaming right now having a quad. Even Crysis and other demanding games are much more hampered by graphics cards than CPU.

The whole reasoning of getting a Quad is that over-clocking is easy and safe unless you go into the deep end. This makes up the speed difference between quad and dual. And since you are supposedly getting this CPU to last a while it's more future proof. You are more likely to get new graphic cards as an up-grade later than CPU so better do it properly while you are at it. Besides you never know when that killer game comes out.

The instances NOW you really need quad are far and between, but when you have one of those situation you are more than happy that your comp does have that extra horse power. The benefits of a quad are really emerging all the time.

Don't buy the old Q6xxx series. I suppose you are doing a complete overhaul with mobo and such?

I'd would go with the Q9450 if I were you and in the market for a new processor.

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Flying under radar.