Being brutally honest, the E8400 is by no means a slouch when it comes to gaming. Suggesting some1 to go from an E8400 to a Q9xxx, I'd really need to know that they're going to utilize that extra core goodness in a practical way to warrant the outlay. Even when 775 was king.
Unless ofc some etailer is spooning them out on the cheap.
Cache is something that will benefit a cpu when it gets bombarded with tasks or processes to do. If u mainly play games, the difference between 4/6/8/12m cache isn't going to make a tremendous difference. To this day, I think 3 processes spawned by a game is the most I've seen. 4m to 12m arguably will result in smoother OS performance also. U'd also see the benefit if u use 5x anti virus things, 4x firewalls, have 3x facebook/socializing thingies open and active, converting pr0n, mass file copying, torrenting, limewiring, viewing the internet, doing ur mail, playing music, having iplayer in a window - and despite all this, having masses of malware trying to make u buy stuff. - but hey, I think the problem here wouldn't really be the lack of cache.
If ur E8400, that I have to say running @3.5 ghz is a real decent performer, happened to blow up on u, then yes a 775 cheapesque cpu as a replacement would be a consideration, and seeing as quads are on the shelf why the hell not get one. But if it's a replacement to something that's working, it'd be more practical to think along what the guyz are saying and save up for a jump up in generation mobos altogether.
At the end of the day, as good as the 775 series is, u do have to safeguard ur future with the tech.
Thing to remember about cache is that it's the cpu's own private playground for dealing with tasks. The more u throw at it, the more playing room it'll have to execute what u want within that cache. Unfortunately and fortunately perhaps, a windows based pc that games tends to deal with these tasks before another one comes along. Windows ""should"" have no more than 30-50 processes laying around idle, 5 or so active, and the launching of a game doesn't do much to sweat the cpu. As I hinted at tho, if u open taskmanager and there's 50miliion tasks both idle and active, then there are other issues - and yes the larger the cache the better.
