The rather limited amount of cache per core on these is the issue, for a lot of apps you'd be better off getting one of the E8x00 dual-cores, or possibly even the Phenom II X2 bundles they have for the same price. I picked up the $109.99 Phenom II X2 bundle with a nicer motherboard (that'll actually take 4 sticks of DDR2 unlike most of their boards) and got lucky with the unlock. You can buy a used E8400 or it's Xeon counterpart for pretty cheap too and for gaming it's definitely better than the Q9300.