What older Intel CPUS (like from 2009) can still "most" games

My current PC that I built back in 2008 with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 (see below) is still quite capable of playing games. The Phenom II 955 BE is a rough equivalent (perhaps slightly more powerful than a Q9450).

I have an older Core 2 Duo E6600 built back in 2006 (currently using as a HTPC) with a nVidia 9600GT that should to be able to play most 2010 games at medium quality. Since it's purpose is to play movies that last game I played on it was Mass Effects 2 (a mix of medium & high).

For a video card, you could try getting an older model like a Radeon 4870 or 4890 or GTX 275 or 280. They're still great for mid-range gaming and they can often be had for cheaper than similarly performing new cards. They are listed as similarly performing to the Radeon 5770, 5830, 6770, and 6790.

I'll also vouch for the Q6600 and E8xxx CPUs.

The GTX 560 TI 448 core is not a cheap card. It is pretty expensive and way over the budget proposed by LarryJones1.

I've been running my C2D e6850 for the past 4 years and it has handled everything, match it with a decent GPU...
once i learned about FSB and OCing these chips are the best at it! (for how old they are)

Radeon 5450? that's roughly equal to Intel's HD 3000, not worth getting for gaming since it could fail with most modern titles even at minimum resolutions/settings.

What graphics is good will depend entirely on what games are being played. New games should not be played on something like the 5450 or even the 6450. New games would be best with at least something like 5600/6600/4700 cards to be played. Nvidia's GT 250 or better is also just as good, but new low end Nvidia cards aren't very good for their prices.

Older games aren't so demanding so slower graphics would be okay. For example, even the old integrated Intel GMA 950 is enough for games like Unreal Tournament 2003/2004 at low settings and it's from around 2006 or 2007.

What games do you intend to play?

EDIT: here's a link to the latest graphics card hierarchy chart posted by Tom's last month:
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 107-7.html

That will show you how each card out there today (and many integrated solutions) stack up against each other in performance.

TBH i recommend a HD6670 , they don't use power connectors from the power supply, only use the pci-e for power.
And it can play most games on medium settings fine.

That is why I don't play games on my 5450, and have 2 560ti's. I use that 5450 in my hackintosh build.

Because it is good enough to play older games with lower details. It is only $15.

Core 2 Quads are routhly equivalent to Phenom II's, especially the later 8000/9000 series. So while they are CPU bottlenecks, you can still chug out decent framerates out of them.

Its kind of sad AMD still doesn't have anything that can beat CPU's that came out in 2007/2008...

Point taken, but a Sandy Bridge i5 will beat the Nehalem i7s in gaming at both stock speeds and overclocked with the same cooler while using less power and being a more future-proof platform.

I think a Core 2 duo/quad would be the best option here after a good overclock, no overclock then an LGA 1155 Pentium might be better. @ Christian Wood, if your friend overclocks that e6400 then it might be a lot better. The graphics/RAM might also be problematic, not enough info is provided to assume it's the CPU. Besides, we're looking more at the e8xxxs instead of e6xxxs.