performance-wise comparisons:
q9300 (qc) vs. q6600 (qc) : q9300 totally smokes the q6600
q9300 (qc) vs. e8500 (dc) : e8500 is better
** reference: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu...uad-q9300.html
in the long run, having a processor with more cores will be a better investment as software developers will be urged to make use of multiple cores.
it is unfortunate that amd still doesn't have anything to match the above processors in performance.