Quad or Dual Core for gaming today?

[drunkgamer]

So since I'm in the market for a new PC (and I tried to find some threads in these forums), is there any reason NOT to get the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6700 2.66GHz vs. the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz other than the .27 increase in clock speed?

I know current games don't all take advantage (if any) of the quad cores right now but I'm looking at it more from the standpoint that the OS will take advantage for background processes, etc. as wel as future growth with new games that will leverage the threads available.

Anything I'm not considering?

Thanks!

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

Well at first i'd tell you just ignore quad core for a few years, but looking at the prices at newegg the QX6700 is only $15 more... so if you've got a good cooling set up to oc that thing then why not go quad? At the very least you'll have bragging rights.

 

[dasickninja]

If we're talking about today I'd go so far as to say single core because of the lack of games optimized to run on dual cores, never mind four cores. But why plan for today when you have to worry about tommorow. If you have the money, go quad.

 

[Valtiel]

I'd grab an X6800 now and if you need a quad core later (MUCH later for games I'm hoping) buy one when the technology has matured a bit more.

Then again Alan Wake is going to have five different threads... (so I heard)

 

[korbin44]

For the difference in price, it's silly not to go with the QX6700. I have it, and I tell you what, there's nothing that slows this beast down! You can do just about anything you want. Play a game while at the same time burn a cd, and encode a movie to HD from an avi file, all of this without any noticeable slow down in responsiveness from the system. I know because that's what I did last night. You don't even need additional cooling to get the QX6700 up to X6800 speeds. All you need is a slight bump in FSB and there you have it! This is simply the best processor to date. Not to mention you'll be ready for the multi threaded games when they start to trickle in this year. Even if you don't multitask, it's pointless to go with anything else when you consider the difference in price.

 

[drunkgamer]

Thanks for the info.

I agree that given the price difference, all things being equal, there probably isn't much of a reason NOT to go with it other than as I mentioned, the core clock speed is faster on the 6800 Extreme.

That said, if nothing else is a negative, then I will probably go with the quad.

 

[chuckshissle]

Quad. That should help for future games like Crysis, no doubt the developers are working with it to support dual core as well as quads. As for coolers go for Tower 120 or Ultra 120 for this cpu is no doubt a very warm one. Go watercooling, I'm sure this fits your budget.

 

[hubbardt]

Quad core for the win !

click me !

8)

 

[Atolsammeek]

Here what I notice in the last few years.

When dual core came out. There was not much use other then Running windows On one core and Play the game on the other core. Which make it faster then Single core computer with the same ghz not by name. Like dual core 2.33 ghz chip vers single core 2.33 ghz chip

With that seid. Dual core is the way to go. Mybe in a few months to a few years game will be useing Dual core more and more. Then slowly change to quad and higher which should be cheaper by time game take advantage of more cores.

One more thing If you wait die size will get smaller and faster and will help the quad cores.

 

[gOJDO]

Get a dualcore

 

[Julian33]

I'd got for a dual core now, that seems to be the sweet spot for gaming for at least the next year. I wouldn't count on that many games utilising more than 2 threads for a while - there are exceptions but its really hard to program that many threads, I doubt there are many devs up to that task.