Thank you for responding guys. Appreciate it.
To be honest, at this stage I dont want to switch setups to an AMD...
A few reasons to justify that, mainly It would leave me with an extra PC floating around. I already have three running at the moment, which all get used every day. For the health of my marriage, another PC would just inspire me to get another case, another desk, more HD's...memory etc....
However, the missus wouldnt see it my way LOLS!
More interested in upgrading the cpu on the 45 board, and upgrading another pc with the redundant E8500. Which suits me fine.
If I can run a Q9550 @ 4ghz
stable, I would be stoked. Absolutely.
****Edit****
Went ahead and picked up a Q9550 on the way home. About $AU400. Pretty happy with that. Got it to 3.6 at the moment. Struggling to get it further- which is just me fumbling with it...
Thanks for the response guys