I went against my old patterns and only got an Intel Core 2 quad Q9550.  It's 2.83 GHZ which is a great improvement over my 2.66 GHz core 2 duo, but normally when I upgrade, I buy as big as I can so that I don't have to worry about upgrading for a few years.  I've still got my 8800 gtx doing reasonably well and that thing is over 3 years old.. Although 512 MB cards are starting to creep into the 'recommended' category for new game, I may have to make the jump from 768mb to something that's well over 1 gb.