However at i5 750 pricing there is no reason to buy Phenom II 965 or AMD .
Buying the best for your money is.
If you have the funds then why not?
Couldn't be wrong on more accounts really for me, firstly an i5 is a somewhat dead platform, AM3 is coming to a close aswell, but at least you'll be able to get some tasty 6 core chips for quite a while to come.
If I was buying now I wouldn't recommend a quad, I would recommend something cheap, its utter crap you need a quad for gaming, a very small number of games need a quad...... USING 4 cores and NEEDING 4 cores are VERY different things.
In a lot of games I play my quad will use all the cores, but invariably I won't often be above 50% cpu usage, infact very rarely and while 1 or even 2 cores have large heavy threads on them, 2-3 cores often have very small amounts of working being done on them at any one time.
Considering the need to stay within XBOX 360 design limits some of the toughest quad core games, like Supreme Commander 2, is no where near as performance hungry as the previous version. Cryengine 3 and the next Crysis game is supposed to look better but be heavily optimised with LESS performance required.
The fact is upgrading to an expensive system and cpu with a dead end socket when Intel and AMD have some significant new stuff happening next year that will offer much better performance for your money and a long term new socket with years of upgrading options. I'd easily recommend a cheap dual core now, because it will more than cope with 95% of games released in the next year, by which time you can sell your cheap system for a small loss and spend that hard earned cash on a real upgrade that will last a heck of a long time.
Just because someone has £2k to spend doesn't mean buying a 6 core i7 is the best way he can spend that money, especially for gaming.
If I had £2k to spend I'd get vastly more value in buying a cheapo dual core system to last the year and spend the rest on a Bulldozer system next year, same goes with GPU's, I could buy a 5970, or 3 Fermi's, but a 5850 is great value, performance and easy overclocking and the money saved can go on a hugely better card next year when games actually need the extra power.
Thats from a starting point of your thread opened with talking about gaming and requirements and advice.
its fairly simple, your advise of buying a quad for gaming right now isn't valid, is pointless for most if not all games and won't change in the next year. You'd get better value as I said, holding out till next year.
For gaming other than a new GPU most CPU's dual core and up sold in the past 3 years are very capable at gaming. The massive majority of games out now and upcoming will work fine on a lightly overclocked £40 dual core. Recommending a £130+ quad, to play GTA 4, is VERY bad advice.