The old phenoms never really launched off as they had overclocking problems which meant a no no in the high performance world, reguardless many machines that used stock settings still had them and they were not all that bad. The 8450 was the lowest one and it is no where near as good as the e5300, the e5300 is a way better choice. It will also overclock very well. It will do 3GHz on stock voltage easily.