Take away benchmarks, can you tell?

I'm getting ready to build a rig based around the Q9550. I plan on OC'ing. I'm going to be gaming, watching HD content, web browsing, and recording music. I'm relatively new to building rigs, but through this board and countless well-written articles I feel as though I'm up to snuff enough to make 'sound' decisions.

As a guitarist, I'm constantly on the quest for MY perfect tone. Between speaker choices, amp choices, circuitry, string brands, necks length, etc. There are a number of variables that go into making my 'perfect' music rig. Let's say someone takes my specs and switches out a few things. Sure, I may have a trained enough ear to notice the differences, but at the end of the day the general music population probably wouldn't be able to tell a damn bit of difference.

Reading benchmarks, I find myself saying, "Holy ****. X processor does this WAY better then Z processor! I MUST GET IT!". Then I'll read on a find out that while it does one thing way better than the other, it falls behind somewhere else. Then I'm back to square one wondering where I should go.

Now, I'm generalizing quite a bit and obviously not entirely getting into what I'm looking for in a computer. I realize that I might be paying too much attention to benchmarks and the like. What I want to know, however, is what you can truly discern as a difference in performance between chips without a benchmark. Is it simply speed? If that's all it comes down to, I don't mind waiting for my 9550 vs. waiting for an i7. Is it stuttering/choppiness? If an 9550 rig and an i7 based rig -- both built similarly with ram and a GTX 260 for example -- were pitted WITHOUT benchmarks, is 9550 deemed unplayable to a new computer user if they were playing, say, COD4 with relatively high settings? Speed I can deal with. Choppiness, stuttering, freezing due to lack of power, that I would absolutely hate.

My goal isn't to start a pointless debate. These questions I used in my example may seem dumb as I come from console gaming and minor computer experience. I just see similarities between first-time computer building and building a music rig.

depending on the mobo you might use a q6600 instead, make sure you can get the high fsb for the mobo -- some mobos top out below 1600fsb wiht e0 cpu

personally if your building new you should go i7

Hooray.

Ehh?

Guys, I'm not asking about ME or MY system.

I think the reiterated interpretation shellmagnet posted sums up what I was trying to ask/say.

For example, in guitar forums, the less educated simpletons fight over who plays notes the fastest. They actually have programs to determine how fast what guitarist plays when they are trying to play at their top speed. Some play 22 NPS at 220bpm, while the next batch plays 21 NPS at 220BPM. So the fanboys come out crying, "*My favorite guitarist plays 1NPS faster, your guitarist is a looooooser! You're pathetic, go die you piece of", and so on.

What's funny is. YOU CAN'T f'in tell!!! That's not something you can pick out by ear and if it weren't for the programs allowing people to calculate how fast the guitarist is playing, you'd NEVER know the difference.

I think I'm starting to answer my own question, however. Unless a computer user REALLY uses high end rendering programs, music decoders, graphics programs, bla bla bla then it's just really a bragging right.**

*That example is extreme but unfortunately guitar forums really do have quite a few Darwinian candidates.
**Feel free to correct me. While I'm STILL trying to ask a question, my statements are truly based off of limited experience and technical know how.

LOL. Sorry if my posts came across as a little rash.

I'm at the point with computers where all new thoughts and discoveries are quite profound to me yet are more like a passing thought to the more experienced.

My apologies.