Need help Picking a CPU

I need a good cpu that can play games and run professional rendering programs like Cinema 4D, Bryce 5.5, and Photoshop CS. i planed on getting the Amd X2 4200+ but i heard that it has problems running games. what do you guys suggest that i get?

Whoever told you that the X2 4200+ has troubles running games, is

full'a'poop'. Both the Pentium D, and the X2 will give you great performance.

Just try not to buy into the fanboyism if a bunch of guys responding to this

start shooting one or the other down.

When people say The Athlon 64 X2 has trouble playing games they really don't know what they are talking about and their expectations are beyond optimistic. For example take the Athlon 64 3500+ and the Athlon 64 X2 4200+ or the 4400+, which has a core clock of 2.2GHz. So games should play faster on the X2 because it has two cores, right? Yes and no. Yes, if they game is multi-threaded to take advantage of more than 1 CPU or 1 core. No, if the game is not designed to take advantage of more than 1 core.

Some people think that games will run twice as fast because if you got two cores running at 2.2GHz, that's like a single core running at 4.4GHz, right? Ummm....Keep dreaming. Dual cores don't work that way. The purpose of dual core is to split everything that the computer does between the two cores. Maybe it's 50% for one core and 50% for the other. Most of the time it's not. The beauty of dual cores is that while one core is busy working on one thing, the other core can do something else. Say like rending something use Bryce, and instead of simply surfing the web or watch a movie on TV, you wanna play a game. Well with a single core you cannot do both at the same time, but with a dual core like the Athlon 64 X2 4400+ you can.

Yes, that's a good solution also.

And they can have problem running games too..

It is a DUAL CORE issue.. not a brand one.

Since I'm an AMD fan, I'll sugest you the Amd X2 4200+ because I don't thrust those who say that it has problems running games (let's get real- it'a a nonsense!).