That brings us to the main question: Why even build a Bloomfield LGA1366 at this point if building a Lynnfield system will save you at least $100 on the board and a little on the RAM, and even more money if you opt for the ultra-budget Core i5-750?Here’s that fork in the road: Lynnfield is cheaper and gets you 90 percent the performance of a Bloomfield system, but early next year Intel will introduce a CPU code-named Gulftown, aka Core i9. Core i9 adds two more physical cores to the CPU and will likely be the first consumer hexacore CPU. With Hyper-Threading, that’s 12 threads available to the OS and enough to make the most jaded enthusiast perk up. Core i9, however, will only be available on the Bloomfield/LGA1366 platform. If you were to build a Lynnfield LGA1156 box there’d be no six-core for you! At least, not at this point. Intel said it has no plans for an LGA1156 hexacore. You see the dilemma. Save money now and build a really kick-### LGA1156 or spend the extra $200 to build an LGA1366 that has an easy upgrade path to six cores with Hyper-Threading. It’s not an easy choice to make under normal circumstances, but in this economic climate, it’s even harder—that $200 goes a long way toward a better GPU, better PSU, more RAM, or a bigger hard drive. The choice, however, is up to you.