Is e8500 NOW worth the extra $20? (over e8400 of course)

a few months back 99% of the population would agree that E8400 is the way forward, with the 8500 costing $100 more.

But now on newegg the 8500 is only $20 more, has the table turned and is it now stupid to get the E8400?

$20 will get you a .5 higher multiplier and possibly a slightly higher binned part.
An E8400 would be more than enough for anyone but if your budget has the extra $20 free, defiantly go for it.

whichever part you can find available with E0 stepping is what you should buy

Ironically I SHOULD BE on a tight budget, I was not going to spend ANY money at all, but my laptop died on me (never ever getting a dell laptop again, thats my 2nd one that seem to have a time bomb on it and fail 1 month after warranty runs out). So all of a sudden I have to quickly build a new system. But you know, 20$ is 20$, I was just doing my research and this question came to my mind. Thx for the input.

So obviously, since I wasn't prepared to be building this system, all of a sudden I have to do this research, and I'm a value shopper, which is why I asked the question, even though its only $20. It matters to me.

And over night (last night I stayed up till 4 in the morning - notice when I added the post) I have read through 20+ threads, 10+ articles and reviews on what is the most value for performance setup, and its pretty obvious every agree mostly on the following:

E8400
ASUS p5Q pro
radeon 4850
DDR2 800 4GB
WD 640GB 7200rpm hd
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283

and then everyone have opinion about cases and PSU and mine are something along the lines of the following, which are more expensive than I'd like already.

PC Power & Cooling S75QB 750W
COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP

And after reading so many posts, and realizing that 80% of them talk about the same builds and components, I am amazed that you guys have the patience. Respect for that.

Ironically this one is turning into yet another one of those : )
Because I'm just about to ask, especially towards Zenmaster, would the E5200 be a better choice for a $ per performance setup, and does that fit the rest of the system? Or would a E8400 still make more sense for this build?

And 1 more thing. I had vista on my laptop, and I learned to hate it. I was planning to put XP on my new system, but then after reading around I am starting to have second thoughts. If vista is going to run so much better for these new components, I may consider trying TINY VISTA - a tweaked version that apparently removed all the annoying bits of the OS (I love Tiny XP). Any advice on the OS for this system?

And Finally, I do plan to OC, but I have never before, and would like to play with that for once. Will this setup allow me to OC as a beginner?

Best regards.

750 Watts ... ?!?!

You'd only need half of that. Get something like the Seasonic S12 430W and save yourself some 80 bucks.

The E5200 would be okay, too. Would probably even be the more reasonable choice. I'd go for the 8400 though.

As for Tiny Vista, I haven't tried it myself. But basically, Vista without the annoying things is just XP with DirectX 10