Quad core upgrade?

[Ripper-X-]

Hi, I have a E4500 oc'd to 2.95Ghz on a Asus P5QL-E MOBO with 4gb of Geil Black Dragon DDR2 8500 1066Mhz ram & want to upgrade to a quad core, my options are,
1. Cheapest option is to buy a Q9650 3.0ghz for around £180ish.
2. Second cheapest option is a new mobo, ddr3 & a Phenom II X4 Quad Core 965 Black Edition 3.40GHz
3. Most expensive option is a new mobo, ddr3 & a i7 920 2.66Ghz.

Buying a Q9650 & slotting it straight in to my currant system is obviously the cheapest & easiest thing to do, (& i can "oc" it) but is there gonna be much difference between all 3 options, & would it be worth the extra expense?
Can anyone advise on this as regards general desktop work, encoding, gaming etc, thx.

Also, is there any different versions of the Q9650 to avoid or try to get if i go this route.

 

[Ripper-X-]

Hi, no i did mean a Q9650.

 

[Ripper-X-]

I'd not spend ~£200 on a dead socket. I'd get a Q6600 (I just bought one for £75 second hand) and save the rest for a future upgrade or an SSD.

If i am going to stay with my currant mobo/ram, i was thinking of getting the most i could out of it thats why i said a Q9650, are you saying the performance from a Q6600 is the same or close to a Q9650?

 

[Ripper-X-]

I just had a E8400 @ 4.0Ghz and was wondering about upgrading to a quad (Q6550 to be precise) and now I have upgraded there is one hell of a difference it was well worth it in my case, great performace increase even doing trivial things it is a dead socket as people have said above, but it beats spending a lot more to upgrade especialy if you want a performace increase without the price-tag.

Ninja

Do you mean Q9550?

 

[Ripper-X-]

The dead socket thing for me would be irrelevant as i would keep the system for a year or two then the pc would be used as a second pc to replace my now second pc that is a AMD 3200+ with 1.5gb ddr ram & geforce 3