Oh boy.

If your really interested in whether or not multi-cored CPUs will benefit your gaming experience do you a little research first because there's a ton of info out there.

In my opinion, yes at least a dual core but more is better. But I'm not going to get into much more detail than that because like I said there is tons of info out there on the subject and I would just be repeating what has been said hundreds of thousands of times before.

reply to - Gamerk316, Yes more cores is better it takes the slack off the cpu for better performance yet in most reviews the E8600 can easy overclock to 4.5 - 5.0GHZ , this is impressive and due to many tests aganst the older quads (not i7) im talking Q6600 to Q9500+, the dual core overperforms but since ddr3 is getting more and more progressive and people are now tending to lean its way the quad-cores are also improveing (for example, the new i7 lineups) , i would tend to think that games are going to soon be muti-thread effective!. This is basicaly like you asking windows xp or vista when vista was just released (many stayed @ XP) but after just 3 months vista started to catch up on xp's sp2/sp3 performance and now i think its faster (for the peeps with the proper pc setups). So time will only tell all i would suggest is buying a cooler and if you got the quads with the unlocked muti-pliers (x12 etc), you shouldnt have a proplem overclocking and beening able to play games smooth. Now the new question you should be asking is windows 7 going to make windows actuly use the muti-cores properly? and if so theres youre answer quad-core and wait for the bentfields or quad-core EO stepping + to release (purchase) , GET soom good ram like dd2-pc28500 or dd3 1333+. Mostly i would suggest if you an extreme gamer like myself to purchase a gx2 9800 ( as if you go to nividias site , hit shop, go to the graphics card sector you will see it outperforms the 260 + 280 , so a single will do, until you got more doh to quad sli it!, once thats done any pc game you toss at the pc will play (emulators to play dos games tho ). And even on the 9800gx2 note (i read on another forum how you can convert youre geforce into a quadro card) i would like to see a 9800 GX2 modded to that!. Intel may have the advantage on cpu's but amd/ati have the advantage on gfx's with the newly released gfx card. But the main thing if wanting a news gfx card to do is look at performing lists like the (nividias site-shop-gfx section) and pick one that suits you're needs remember engines in the gfx cards are very much different amd/ati had the uper hand on the halflife engines, so it realy depends on what game you paying and wanting to gain performance on.

you don't consider that he's talking AMD, which means he'll probably get better performance form a dual core because their quads are pretty bad.