Which CPU of these 2 should I choose, please help!?

Go for the Core i7, it'll give you more perfromance from your DDR3 RAM as it has an integrated DDR3 controller whereas the Q9550 is a top end DDR2 CPU.

the i7 will perform better, and so will the ddr3 as the i7s motherboard uses quick path interconnect rather then front side bus this provides faster communication between ram, cpu and gpu,

also with the i7 you get an upgrade path, there is not a lot better then the Q9550 and there for if you want to upgrade your processor in the future there wont be much options, the i7 uses tri-channel ram so make sure you get 3gb, 6gb or 12gb, you wont be able to do this with the 9550.

Buy the i7 . it might be slower at running some of todays programs but in the long run youl thank yourself. i think intel are dumping dual and quad core some time in 2010 and also youl have an upgradable system well into the future as your motherboard will have the right sockets........so youl be able to upgrade to 6 core chips wen they come out

Personally, I have the i7 chip and it's great. I looked at some statistics before I bought it, and price-per-price, it outperforms the older intel core 2 models and the phenoms.

Go for Intel® Core i7.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&loc...

i7, no contest.