Well, actually, the Phenom 2 keep up with the intel Quads, many have said that a Q6600 wiull beat a Phenom 2
LOL
thats a fact and many websites who tested Phenom 1 and 2 v Q6600 proved it, the Q6600 especially in overclocked mode can out run the Phenoms, thats a fact not fiction.
however, most phenoms can easily get to 3.8, if not 4, and they are far more resistant to volts than their intel counterparts
With the right heat sink and fan you can easily do the same with the Q6600.
Its been proven that Phenoms don't over clock that well so clock for clock Intel cpus beat the phenoms.
If you get an core2duo E8600 that can easily be overclocked to over 4 ghz and beat the phenoms.
And when you consider that a good AM2+ board is much cheaper than a good P45 or something of the like
I have P35 and my E6600 can go to 3.4ghz on air with only an increase in FSB, same thing i guess applies to Q6600, If you increase the volts you can get more from intel.
If you get a P31 or P35 and fit a 2nd hand Q6600, Q6700 or what ever they are better value for money than the newest Phenom 2 and AM2+.
The phenom 2 is AMDs fastest CPU but it can not touch intels fastest core2qaud (the Q9650).
If the Phenom 2 was faster and more overclockable than an i7, Q6600, Q9650 i would ditch Intel and go after Phenoms, but they are not and there are roumers that after socket AM3 AMD will make a new CPU with new socket.
Faced with that it would be better to jump from E6600 to an i7 as either way i'd have to get a new motherboard, cpu and DDR3 ram, i7s are the fastest cpus currently around.
By the way I am not anti AMDs, my old PC has an AMD athlon 2500 cpu, thats built like a tank, is still running strong now and it can out run its Intel version so I am an AMD fan, but current AMDs are not as good as their Intel versions.