Phenom II x4 965 vs Athlon II x3 455

Hi zankuto!
the Phenom II X4 hands down.
However we could say that Tomshardware has stated many times that the budget cpu is still athlon II X3.
So it depends on budget really.

Phenom II 965. Any phenom better for the price/performance sweet spot?

Phenom II X4 965 is still a great budget cpu.

If you can get the 955 quad core they overclock to 965 speeds easily and are cheaper too... 

I'd play around with Aanand's benchmarks, they don't have exactly what you are talking about but you can make inferences:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/202?vs=102

The 6850 is quite a bit slower than the 5870... so I'd expect the FPS differences to be less in a fight between the 2 CPUs.

I'd get the 955 BE which is on sale at NEWEGG (USA) for $104. It's trivial to get it up to the 965's speed.