If you have the $_$ to get a Q9550 and $300 for a motherboard, I would also suggest what Vernong said, a Core i7 would do you better, that would truly be "getting the most for your money", as for a "gaming motherboard" but if you looking for better gaming performance, I would suggest getting a dual core that can overclock to higher speeds instead of a quad that can do mediocre speeds. Since last time I checked, a lot of games still don't utilize all four cores. I personally would get anything e8400 or above and a sexy DFI lanparty series motherboard (that is if you have a windowed case to show it off ^^) DFI makes some pretty good "gaming" motherboards, and there are results that motherboards designed to for gaming does sometimes increase frame rates, although sometimes only as low as 1-2%