i am upgrading my system mostly for gaming, fsx to be specific, i need to know which cpu i'll be better off for performance the E8400/8500 OR THE Q9450?????? i dont wanna know about other cpu like the q6600 i just want to know about these 2 thank you.

Read this:
http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/arch [...] n-sp1.aspx

Seems to be Quad Core would be the way to go based on what they are saying. But you need FS:X SP1 to get all those performance enhancements.

The Q9450 however is almost double the price of the E8400 (looking at NewEgg) though, so I guess it depends on how much you want to spend.

I am personally wondering how easy a FSB OC on the Q9450 would be though. The Penryns seem to OC very well so would you be able to buy a Q9450 and simply crank the FSB up to 400Mhz and turn your 2.66 into a 3.2? You might have to increase the CPU Voltage a little and you definitely need a good cooling solution, but with the QX9770 (400Mhz FSB 3.2Ghz speed) being released recently, its obviously possible for the chip to achieve (and sustain) these speeds. I know this is blasphemy but Anandtech has a whole in depth article about the X48 chipset and the associated memory timings and how they affect system performance more than normal memory ratings like 4-4-4-12 and stuff.

E8400 for gaming its cheaper. For video ren go with the Qs. But I went with the E8400 and could not be happier with the performance.

Actually video rendering for the most part is faster on the E8400. In fact, the e8400 beats the Q6600 in almost every test regarding video, audio, and gaming.