I wanted to spend around $1200, but I need everything, including a monitor. Micro Center has a deal on the i7-950 right now for $200 ($80 cheaper than Newegg) and it won't be around much longer, which is prompting me to ask and see if it's worth it to drive to the store now and just buy it.

Sounds like a reasonable discount. On stock 950 should perform much like 2500k, albeit marginally worse. When OC-ed, 2500k leaves 950 way behind. So, if you don't plan on OC-ing your system, and you can get it for a better price - it should be a good choice to go with 950. Plus, then you can go with triple channel RAM which translates into 6GB which are cheaper than 8GB if you want to have more than 4GB of RAM which I would recommend. ;)

I guess the basic question is:

i7-950 (1366 socket) - $200

i5 2500k (1155 socket) - $180 (could overclock up to ~5Ghz)

i7 2600k (1155 socket) - $280

What makes the newer i7s (and the new 1155 socket mobos) worth all the extra money? Is COD really going to take advantage of the hyperthreading in the i7s? I think I might as well save the money and get more RAM or a better monitor or GPU. Am I wrong?

After looking at Micro Center's prices on the other two processors, I may get the 2500k and just OC

so would these two be a good combo?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128475

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115072

For this price - go with 2500k and don't think a second of it. :) 2500k is far better "bang for the buck" if these are the prices in your area / at your local retailer.

HT will only be useful if you do a lot of programming or work in software that uses and can utilize more threads (e.g. video editing). There is absolutely no sense in purchasing a HT CPU that apart from HT has the same performance as the i5 counterpart, in this case 2500k. If those were real cores, than maybe - but the very marginal increase in performance (questionable in games) makes it a pointless purchase.

Would work. But I would go with a P67 chipset, in order to fully utilize 2500k's OC potential. I doubt that you will be able to with H67. If you're going with an H67 then save some money and get an ordinary 2500 with a locked multiplier that can't be OC-ed.

Thanks for the help guys, I'm probably going to get a P67 mobo anyways, but I'm going to go get the 2500K tonight, the sale ends next week. If anyone in the US lives near a Micro Center, take advantage of this NOW.

My brother built a computer in Dec, and he's got the 950. Don't think any of those virtual cores really do anything but idle on his computer. He makes IL2 maps, so maybe for that, but otherwise no.

I really wanna get the new Asus P8P67 (B3 version) mobo... but i cant seem to find it anywhere.

this is from Asus's website
http://usa.asus.com/product.aspx?P_I...cIU&templete=2

I want to get a 2500k cpu paired with an Asus mobo as well. Tigerdirect has an Asus board in stock right now but I don't think it's the one you linked.

Just got back from the store. Got the 2500K, but make sure you get a P67 mobo becuase it doesn't have onbaord graphics, and it allows you to overclock the processor. The guy at the store didn't recommend the Asus 1155 socket boards, he said wait a week or two until stores are stocking the Intel and Gigabyte B3 revision boards.