I posted this in another newsgroup and it was suggested that I should post
in a video etc. group as well.

I'm assembling the components to upgrade this machine (it is a 939 mobo with
a nForce3 chip and early releases of Windows7 didn't play well with the
chipset). I'm not a gamer, I don't need the latest and greatest cpu and I
don't plan on any overclocking. The most demanding things I do are video
recoding of HDTV, some audio recoding and some simple image editing.

I already have a mobo that takes AM3 processors and DDR2 memory. I'm
considering a Athlon II x4 or a Phenom II x3 both running at 2.6. They are
about the same price and the only difference, other than the cores, is the
L3 cache. The Athlons don't have any and the Phenoms have 6 MB.

What are your opinions? Will I see any difference in the performance in my
real world situations?