pardon my ignore, which system would be faster for widows 7 as workstation
running ms office 2007 suite, accounting (simply, quickbook):
i3 540 (3.06GHz) with 4 GB ddr3, Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2H
vs core 2 Q8300(2.5Ghz) with 4 GB 800Mhz ddr2, asus p4G41

assuming same dual port video card add on (MSI X8400GS-TD512EH)
at first glance it seems i3 would be faster for accounting side
not sure about multi-tasking, document/application switching, searching