Yeah I remember you Swanie, don't worry. :D
No degradation on the BE so far as seen on the 9500. My 9500 was much better than this one though.
Maybe BE is worth it for you then considering what you're stuck with at present but keep in mind nothing of oc is guaranteed. You may get more and you may even get less than what I'm getting at present. The good thing of BE is, you can run NB/HT at plus ~2.5GHz very stable at near 2.4GHz on CPU. I personally would not advise buying the BE yet if you have a Phenom already.