Understanding the current crop of chips

[dangerstat]

So lets break this down.

For everything the i7 is best.
The i5 is close the i7 for gaming tasks. Bar gaming it's pretty much on bar with a highly clocked Phenom II

Though performace per pound the Phenom II beats the i5 (at the moment)


So:
"I love games but I'm no rich guy" -> buy the i5
"I've got so much money I wipe my bottom with 20's" -> buy the i7
"I want the best value CPU" -> buy the Phenom II

 

[dangerstat]

Thank you for your clear statements! It's really helped mate.

No worries, I'm following all this and I think it's just getting stupid with the amount of chipsets, CPUs and the like. How on earth the general population is meant to make a choice right now, god only knows