Hey everyone,
    I just went to Frys and bought a few items since they were having great deals.  One of the items I bought was a Q9450 CPU which I got for 279.00.  I currently have a Q6600 OC'd to 2.6Ghz.  I was wondering whether it was worth it to keep the Q9450 or just stick with my Q6600.  I really just bought the Q9450 for the price and not because I am unhappy with the Q6600.  Toms CPU charts are old and dont include the Q9450, so I dont know how the Q6600 and Q9450 compare performance wise.  If I kept the Q9450 I would just sell the Q6600.  ALSO,  I purchased a second Geforce 8800GT 512MB I got for 139.99 (super deal) and I want to run dual SLI cards.  What motherboard should I get to run dual SLI cards with either the Q6600 or the Q9450.  Looking forward to your input! Thanks!

the Q9450 is going to be the better performer, the Q6600, as much as i hate to say it (i own one) is the lower performer here.

BTW.  I will be using this machine for gaming.  I also got a Sound Blaster Xtreme Fatal!ty Pro sound card for 49.99.  4 GB of RAM at the moment Kingston Hyper X (might have to switch the RAM with a new SLI mobo).  overclocking.......eh.......maybe, maybe not.....not very important.  I am also using an artic freezer 7 Pro

q9450 just edges out the q6600, but not always.  It "should" OC higher and "should" be more efficient though.  In my opinion, not worth it.

Q9450 delivers noticable perfromance boost for tasks like video encoding, but gaming, unforunately, is another matter. If you run the q9450 on the same setup as q6600, prepare to be disappointed, especially on current games that are gpu, not cpu, limited.

Your best motherboard option for sli is 780i. The problem is, 780i runs at 1333mhz fsb natively, and reliably oc to 1600mhz. At 1600mhz, q6600 (9x) runs at 3.6ghz and q9450 (8x) runs at 3.2ghz. A 3.6ghz q6600 will significantly outperform a 3.2ghz q9450. In order to let q9450, with its lower 8x multiplier, to really shine, you would need a x38/x48/p45 motherboard, but that'll mean losing sli. X38 use Crossfire on PCIE2.0, but ATI's selection of graphics cards are pretty bad at the moment.

If you're building a new machine and want performance, q9450 is a smart choice. But the upgrade from q6600 to q9450 isn't very smart. The gap just isn't large enough for it to be worth an upgrade, especially with q9450's lower multiplier working against it.

Although as a positive side not, you could always use it for a suicide run on 3dmark right? lol.

thanks for the replies guys.  So it looks like i'll just sell the Q9450 and get an SLI board.  Any specific SLI board that you guys would recommend?  I saw 780i.....Any specific model or brand betetr than the other?

Are those boards picky with the Q6600?

Agreed
trulaker9:
It was expected that the transfer from 65n processors technology to 45n and shrinking the size of chip will result in less power cosumption and less heat  
But actually No.of transistors was increased and inserted in a smaller chip
And many are complaining of high temps of 45n processors
I think Q6600 (G0 stepping) prooved itself a good performer and overclocker
And it is one of Intel benchmarks that will never happen again
Stick to Q6600 (G0) and overclock especially you have artic freezer 7 Pro
You may acheive 3.6 GHz

What specific SLI board do you recommend?

No, any 780i board will run Q6600 fine, and not bottleneck it due to fsb limitations. It's a good match, as the chipset and cpu's bottleneck is around the same speed, which makes it a balanced build and good value.

A good match for q9450 would be x38/48.