Question about Penryns and cache

I'm thinking about upgrading to a 45nm quad sometime after the beginning of the year. The bonus to gaming performance will be nice, but it's not the main reason I'm considering the upgrade. Since I'm already hooked up to the HDTV, I'd like my pc to take on a little more of an HTPC role while still serving as a gaming platform- Hence the need for more cores.

So, if we're focusing on things like DVR tasks and encoding, how much difference is cache going make with these processors? If I were just upgrading the processor I'd absolutely spring for one of the models with 12Mb of L2, but I'm going to have to pick up some more RAM, a copy of Vista x64, and probably a large hard drive to round out the package.

So, how do options like the Q8200 and Q9300 stack up to the likes of the Q9550? I will of course do at least some mild overclocking, but I won't be going for any world records on air cooling. If I can sit between 3.0 and 3.2ghz with the cooler I'm using now I'll be pretty happy.

from what I have seen the Q8200 can overclock pretty nicely, but I think the Q9300 would be a better choice. (although if you can, go for the 9550)

if your gaming at high res, like over 1280x1024 with aa/af on then you wont get a gain from higher L2 size. you will on lower res gaming with no aa/af, its roughly 4-6% evertime the L2 gets doubled. now keep in mind at that the 65nm and 45nm quads while have more L2 then duals. will not give you this boost at lower res's, simply the quad is 2 dual core dies. meaning that if cpu 0 is gaming it can only use up the L2 per it die with cpu 1. in the instance of a Q9300 that is only 3mb to one die, 6mb total for both sets. Q8200 for each set would only have 2mb's per die or 4mb total.

the size of L2 will also not effect things like encoding or transcoding. it will affect number crunching like F@H,Seti,Rosetta.

Thanks Evil, good info. I guess for my needs, the cache isn't so important.