i have recently updated my mobo bios and it will now take the phenom apparently with a few features not working
my problem is shall i get the 9850be/9950be phenom and not use it to its full capacity
wait for the x2 6500 or just get x2 6000 and a good cooler and give it a good oc, then save for a new phenom based system next year or even go intel which i aint done since 1998 with a celeron 333, i only game and surf so is a phenom overkill anyway, and i can get a x2 6000 for £65 and and im not sure a phenom will give me much more power

hello, any opinions?

For surfing, you don't need much cpu power.
For games, it depends.
With better vga cards you might need more clock speed, but not more cores.
Read this article on duo vs. quad scaling in games:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/cpu- [...] ocessors/1

I doubt that you would get much more in games with a faster quad.
It might be better to upgrade your vga card.

Read this article about what it takes to get best possible gaming performance:
http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=vga_charts

Where do you fit on the charts?

You might instead want to upgrade to 4gb. Heres why:
http://www.corsairmemory.com/_appn [...] alysis.pdf

Would help if you stated your current cpu and gpu. But since your a gamer and a webrowser you should look at upgrading your video card 1st of all. If your video card or new video card that you look at will be bottlenecked by your current cpu then you should look to upgrade that. Or just overclock it if you can. I would look at higher clocked X2s like the brisbane 3ghz

u DONT need a quad
get a dual core and oc it to 3+ ghz
video cards do best with cpus 3+ ghz

i have a e2180(2ghz stock) i oced it to 3.2, it runs sweet, when i take off the oc then i get a huge FPS impact, when i oc it more fps dosent change much

if you play modern games (last 1-2 years) u should have at least an 8800gt/9800gt (same card except with 3 way sli support) before u put money into anything else

this is my current spec
amd x2 4200
asus m2n-sli deluxe
2gb geil ddr2
8800gt 512mb
650w psu atrix
cruiser case
xp home

just oc the cpu as high as u can (get a good cooler) an keep the system for ~1 year longer, if you feel u need to pour more money into it go buy another 8800gt, u can get them for ~$100 on sale nowadays (or less)