Intel i7 or Q series?

[ionik]

Birthday is coming around and wife is letting me upgrade ( )

 

Its been about 4 years since I last built a system ( lots of repairs and swaps but never a full build )

 

I haven't been keeping up on the latest and have a budget of $5-600 bucks for a mobo/ram/cpu, and debating on whether I should go with the i7 series or the Q ..... while I have found a lot of reviews for both most of them are many many months old.

 

I already have a vid/psu/hd which is a GTX 260/600W (something??)/WD-180GIG. Video card is not yet bought PSU and HD are being thrown into new system from my current setup which is btw.

 

Gigabyte K8-Pro Sli

600 W PSU              --|

1.5 GIG Corsair Ram --|-- All 3 are 4 years old

180 GIG HD            --| 

7950GTX - About 1 1/2 year old

 

From what I have seen so far I can get the following

 

$620

------------------

i7 920

Gigabyte GA-Ex58

Corsair 6 GB Ram

 

$510

-----------------

Q9550

GIGABYTE GA-EP45T

Corsair 4 GB Ram

 

 

Is it worth the extra $110 for the i7, I will be doing quite a bit on the machine. It will be running a dual boot Linux/Windows 64 bit.

Linux side will be for php development/everyday use

Windows will be used for gaming/photshop.

 

I'm pretty much fair to stick with corsair and gigabyte as that is what im running now ( have been for 4 years ) and never had a single problem.