Pros: Great performance (for its time, of course). Can still rival the latest Haswell i5s in heavily multithreaded programs. I've tested this. Overclocks well. Supported a large amount of RAM for its time (although it's really the chipset that lets this happen) Used a high-end socket, which meant you could upgrade to a hexacore i7-970 later after a BIOS update.

Cons: Very poor performance-to-price ratio (even worse now!) Throw away the stock cooler if you plan to do any serious overclocking.

Overall Review: This was the i7-4960X of its time. And I really mean it. It was the absolute highest-performing consumer CPU of late 2009. It supported a whopping 12GB RAM with 6 slots on supporting motherboards. It demolished Q9550s of yesteryear with ease. If you wanted the best, this was what you would get. But just like the 4960X, this CPU suffers from a lack of bang for buck. The 4960X has a sibling that's half the price, and performs 90% as well as it does: the 4930K. It's similar for this CPU. It too has a little brother, the i7-920, which performs 85% as well as this one for half the price. If your 920 overclocked well, you could even beat this chip while saving $250! So yeah, if you had even a shred of financial sense in you, you'd go for the 920.