dual vs quad core for games

higgledyhiggles

Sorry if it`s been asked before (I did a search, couln`t see it)

looking at a new machine now.
is there a preference for a games machine Dual / Quad... Intel / AMD ???

I was looking on overclockers site at their Ultima range.

cheers,
higgles

Judas

ATM, Intel Quad Core is seeing some definite advantages....

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ChaosMinionX

To be honest..... the Intel Q6600 QuadCore is gonna be your best bang for the buck processor....however not all games are going to utilize a quadcore, and not all applications will use it.

Some people will still say diehard Dualcore for now (since majority of things dont use Quads) and clock the hell out of it. But I disagree, because when the stuff that comes out that is optimized for multicore solutions then you will see better performance from a lower clocked quadcore (3.0-3.6ghz), in comparison to a higher clocked dual core (3.8-4ghz)

And the only way to go at the moment is with Intel Core2 lineup.

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tcman

A Core 2 Duo is still sufficient enough for most games out there. With more cores than 2 per cpu won't make games much faster.

That the same with GPU's at the moment; With triple SLI and CrossfireX you won't get 3x resp. 4x the speed, not to speak of how high your energy/electricity bill will be with so much power hungry beasts in your system.

But if you also do other things besides gaming than a Quad 2 Core is definitely a good choice, e.g. for video encoding, CAD etc. etc. - most of this kind of software for these purposes support multicore systems, i.e. more cores the better and faster.

PangingJr

how much is the Q6700 in the US.?

i think it's now cheaper than Q9300,
and it's just not much more than the Q6600,
the Q6600 is also cheaper than an E8400 now.

Judas

TCMAN

the fact of the matter is that Multi threading for CPU's is mostly handled by both the OS and the Programs running..

where as SLI/Crossfire are strickly handed by only the driver (which is very limiting)

So the comparison is void...

Even if programs aren't making use of quad core themselves, the OS (vista) will balance the tasks to it's best ability and usually it's damn good at it..

The best thing for a computer for gaming imo is Quad core, the Q6600 is worth every penny and the Dual cores that are rated much much faster while may "initially" out perform the q6600, it's not likely to stretch at all far (Hell even today, a Q6600 is more fluent in games then a E8400 now)

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DJ BIG T

found it at newegg for 219.00

Newegg.com - Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - CPUs / Processors

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higgledyhiggles

thanks guys, that helps a lot.
I think I`ll take the plunge on a new quad core then.
lovely job