Great performance for the price

Excellent performance for the current price. Runs cooler than my Q6600 (B3 stepping) at its higher base speed (2.5 GHz). Max OC achieved = 3.3 GHz, with 1.33V Vcore, and ZEROTherm Nirvana NV-120 HSF. Could possibly go higher, but water-cooling is required.

This CPU's dual-core competition is the E8400, but I prefer quad-core CPUs as overall PC performance in Vista is boosted by the presence of the two extra cores. The E8400 may be a bit faster in games overall, but more and more developers are optimising newer games for 2, 3 and 4-cores. I contend that multi-core CPUs are 'the future'.

All in all, highly recommended. After market HSFs (such as the excellent Thermalright Ultima 90/Ultra-120 Extreme)are also highly recommended if purchasing this CPU.