What is the best 775 socket cpu for gaming?

Please dont suggest i get a new mobo. This is more like a contingency than anything else. I want to see if i could update the cpu i have in this stock hp. I have a case so i want to see if i would be able to successfully most this mobo over to another case and make it so i could get into gaming very cheaply. Now ive considered apu's but i dont want to spend money on those unless this isnt an option. I would prefer to get either an 1155 or an am3+ socket. But that might not be able to happen. I would like to buy parts over time but id like to see if this was possible so i could get a cheap used q6600 or something like that probably a 7770 or something close and a psu.

Unless everyone thinks that would be really foolish to do. But i am open to suggestions.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/CQ6C

If you can find it used for the right price by all means pick one up. I just feel like all these core 2 quads are really expensive for how old they are. I dont know how well they will preform today, but im sure others on here do and will give you better insight. Just know that if you are going to drop $75 (cheapest used one i found on amazon) on a used cpu then you are $75 dollars shorter for upgrading your system in the future which you probably will need to do for gaming..

Well, the 775 is geting really outdated but if you find some cheap Q8200 or Q6600. Both have more less the same performance. If you have a little more money, and you can find one, grab a Q9450 or a Q9950.

Still you are better off saving money to get a new mobo.

I love that people openly suggest Phenom II's and then turn around and say Core 2 Quads are outdated. Phenom II's and Core 2 Quads have about the same performance. That being said, a Core 2 Quad definitely won't bottleneck a card like a Radeon HD 7770. If it was a higher end card, then you might see some slight bottlenecking though.

Well the later releases are the ones you'd want to look at. This is (don't quote me) as the later models are more likely to support more instruction sets. 

So the best chip IMO is the Q9550s. Though the ones remaining are pretty expensive. though you could look on ebay...

- zanginator

people suggest phenom II's because they still work in a socket in which people will be able to upgrade later on... no one is going to suggest going out to find a core 2 quad and a mobo with a 775 socket. 

An FX-6300 is only $25 more than a Phenom II X4 965. So tell me again...why buy a Phenom II when you could get an FX?

What if you dont have the money at the time? I'm still trying to get my budget down after wrecking my car. Ive been piecing builds together here and on partpicker. You can always find a reason to bump it up a few dollars here and there.  The fx-6300 is is 140 but why not upgrade to the 8350 its only 50 dollars more and the performance boost you will see will be amazing. You see what i mean.

$25 on a sub-100 dollar cpu is more than a 25% cost increase. Balance for the entire system means more than getting the best value'd part for every slot. Phenom IIs are still damn good for gaming and hardly considered slouches. ANYTHING you can find on an LGA 775 socket is a waste of your money and about 3 dead socket generations up the ladder. Phenom II is still on a living socket that has more tek inbound.

At least the FX-6300 is a current CPU though. When you're building a new build, you don't want old tech in it.

My point is, if you're building a new computer then you shouldn't be putting old tech into it.

take it from an expert at making Fast shit cheap, vortexx is right

if you already have a 775 mobo and ram for it then bid on a e8400,  its only 2 cores but its cores are individually stronger than say a q6600 since it has a higher clock most games won't effectively use more than 2 cores, also OC the shit out of it, if your Mobo doesn't support overclocking and voltage changes the use a BSEL mod to up the FSB and voltage, with a FSB 0f 400 and 9 multi it should give you 3.6Ghz