CPU Upgrade: Intel E8400 for Intel Q9550

[montarazvz]

Hi guys, so I have this almost 7 year old PC, which is still my main and gaming computer, and I was thinking on upgrading my CPU for about $100 to improve a little my games and Processing overall.

I was checking Benchmarks and doing a research and came up with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 as a good candidate for my purposes. The next possible is the Q9650 but the jump in price/performance didn't convince me.

As the title says my current CPU is an old mid quality Intel Core Duo E8400, I want to ask you fellas what do you think the improvement will be, is it worth it, and if there is any other suggestion I am open for it. I should note that I upgraded my GPU (since my old GeForce 8800 died this year) to a GeForce GTX 750.

Thanks for the input!

Intel Core Duo E8400
GeForce GTX 750
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]MSI P35 NEO2-FR 775 RT
8GB RAM (Max. supported)
SSD 500GB (OS Drive)
[/FONT]

 

[cbn]

I would also consider the E5440 Xeon quad core with LGA 771 to LGA 775 sticker mod.

It has the same clockspeed and cache as the Q9550, but has a 15 watt lower TDP and is much cheaper.

Here is my experience with the mod--> http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2408974&highlight=

Additional resources for the mod:

http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/

http://www.overclock.net/t/1431723/mod-lga775-support-for-lga771-xeon-cpus