Q8400, Q9400 or Q9550?

Which ones the best?
a) Q8400 with Radeon HD 4870
b) Q9400 with HD 4850 1GB
c) Q9450 with HD 4850 512/4770 512
Games- everything except strategy games.
Settings- All max, 2x AA, 16x AF, 800*600(6x forced AA), 1024*768.

Option d)Q9550 (from the thread title)

My current 7 year old monitor.where I come from, A 22''(1680*1050) will probably cost more than the rest of my system put together....
Budget=~800

That res + those graphic cards = pointless overkill/waste of cash.

The overkill is cause I intend to keep the system for ~5 years. GPU change in 2011. Also, I like knowing theres some power in reserve.
BTW isnt the i7 faster than the Q9550? So wont that be better lasting?
Building from scratch. Current system - P4 2.0 GHz Socket 478, 256 KB L2, 256 MB RAM @ 266MHz, GeForce FX 5500 256MB, 40 GB HDD.

The i7 isn't that much faster then the old 9xx0 series of Quads, but has the 8 threads via virtualization, and a edge in multi-GPU setups. Anything over a Q9550 should be good through the i7/i5 generation.

The socket the Duos/Quads run on, LGA775, is essentially going on obsolete, as i7 operates on a new socket. The problem is most LGA775 systems use DDR2 RAM in Dual Channel (two sticks) and i7 uses DDR3 in tri-Channel (3 sticks), rasing the costs of installing memory and the cost of the mobo to boot, adding around $400 to the price.

Again, a Q9550 or better will be fine for several years; we are only hitting the front end of multithreading, and Quads over time will get better and better. I personally plan to wait until the next new arch (AFTER Sandy Bridge in 2011) to upgrade from my QX9650.

On a comparative basis it will last until 2013/2014 ... but it will be 75% slower than the 'bleeding edge'.

And someone needs to start exporting AMD into your country. They might now give those Pentium D's a run for their money

lol, i still have one of them, P4 socket 478 @2.80 and i think im going to bin it,i dont know what to do with it.