It looks that Yorkfield 45nm quad-core availability, at least in the mainstream market, is getting better. You can buy Q9450 for close to €300 and, more importantly, the 2.5GHz clocked Q9300 is available on the German e-tail market for €204.

This CPU is limited to 6MB or 2x3MB, as each core has its own 3MB but we guess it is doing the job. If you really want the full Monty and Q9450 with 2.66GHz clock and 12MB or 2x6MB of cache you need to splash out at least €292.50. At the current exchange rate Europeans are paying $454.34, which we believe its way too much. Intel suggest that stores should be selling these for a bit more than $317.

This makes the situation even sweeter, Q9300 is available in USA, while Newegg don't even have the Q9450 listed. It looks that Intel prefers to sell these CPUs in Europe, as this is a good way to earn some additional money.

The European Q9300 is listed here, the European Q9450 is listed and available here and the USA Q9300 is listed and available here.