anonemus

^ Because the spirit is willing, but the pocket is weak

comp_ali

lol , you are right . money is always the issue.

xen.chris

Really, how soon ? 3 to 5 years ? By that time he would have bought another pair of video cards. Current games run better on dual-core cpu with high frequency & not on quad-core more slow paced cpu's. So in 2010 games run better on dual-core, because the programmers are lazy to develop multi-threated games, and on the hardware side, the market is flooded with quad-core cpu's & soon will be delivered 6-cores cpu's from both Intel & AMD. Do you see how HUGE is the gap between software & hardware ? Maybe because Bill Gates is not in charge anymore. /joke

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...servant of the masters...

comp_ali

Man , look at supreme commander 1/2 , GTA IV , Metro 2033 and many others. They are recommending quad core , won't be much time until it is a minimum..

BlueMak

Two core desktop CPUs appeared in 2005. The first IIRC games that ask as a min a dual core cpu only appeared in 2009. Even now in 2010 the games demanding two core cpus are a minority.
I just don't see Quad core cpus becoming the minimum for games for at least 2 years. Some game might appear that requires it, but the norm? Nah.
Only way it is going to change if the next generation of gaming consoles come out in the next 18 months. I think you know what the chances of that happening are.

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The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others(Bertrand Russell)"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil,You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them." - Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis
This is slavery, not to speak one's thought. [Euripides-The Phoenician Women (c.411-409 B.C.)] http://www.macedonia.info/FALLACIESANDFACTS.htm Sic semper tyrannis.

iPlayer

It's something to consider, with more applications and games that make better use of them coming out. But then again, when it comes to gaming, the video card is more important.

But, saying minimum would be inaccurate. Quad-cores aren't necessarily more capable than a Dual-core, and I mean in applications optimized for multi-core processing. It depends on the processing units capabilities. The new i5 dual-cores, for instance, are rather powerful.

anonemus

I guess this is why the i3 (dual core with HT) has an appeal as it can perform virtually like a quad core when needed?

iPlayer

I wasn't counting on the HT there.

HT performance varies. It's not always good to have it on.