I am going to be building a new system sometime in the next few months, so im starting to do a bit of research. I use my Pc for a very wide variety of apps , its the front end of my audio system, my SD/HD video player/recorder, a workstation and a gaming pc all in one. I use apps like Autocad2008 and Mastercam for work, Photoshop and Premiere for pics and movies as well as basic a/v encoding/editing/playback, web browsing and occasional games. Im trying to descide wether to go with a quad or dual core and if i should go with C2D now or wait for the new AMD cpus? Any opinions? Can apps like Autocad, Photoshop or HD playback take advantage of 4 cores? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.
thanks

Haven't heard of Mastercam and I don't think quad will do much for Autocad. It will boost Photoshop depending on what you do, encode much faster with Premiere and similar, and be nicer for HD playback as well as multitasking.

If you wait for AMD you can evaluate which will give you more for your money PLUS prices should drop.

The Intel quad core would work wonders for him, so there's no reason to wait, plus AMD has kept us waiting, there's always something new around the corner so if we just waited for the next best thing we'd be waiting forever.

So for the type of work you do the quad would win hands down.

Quad.

On occasion, I will be playing a game, and the cursor will become jerky. I think it is because some system taks or two is waking up. I think this would be reduced with a quad. With all the things you have going on at the same time, you shluld get a quad and plenty of memory. Actually I would like a 3-way processor.
There are supposed to be some intel price cuts july 22 where you can get a q6600 for the price of a e6600 today. Also look for the bearlake chipset boards and possibly even new 45nm processors in Q3. If you can contain your eagerness, wait.

I agree with you on this, a lot of people don't realize that while the quad may have a lower clock frequency, if it can take care of things in the background that'd make more of a difference than a few more MHz.

Other factor(s) to consider is how often (if ever) you upgrade your system, and when do you plan on replacing the system.

For tweekers, constantly replacing and upgrading parts, then go with Dual Core today and replace the CPU over the next year when Quad prices (hopefully) drop down to today's price of a single core.

If you replace systems infrequently (waiting more than 2 years between purchases/builds) then by all means go QUAD. Top of the line system today will be mainstream in 2+ years and more than enough for any software upgrades that will take place in the next few years as software companies start multithreading ALL of their apps.

How much is your budget?

Like it was said the price of going quad core is going to be ~>$266, as compared to the ~>$533 it is now.

Look, technology is a bitch, and always makes you feel stupid, especially in the computer industry, because the products are always becoming more and more efficient, faster, and productive. So, if you have the money available, i would say buy whatever is the 2nd or 3rd best quad core on the market (i dont usually buy the top dollar product as the price-value ratio usually sucks). I must say though, with a conroe 6600 i can do a shitload of things at once...for instance

I can have COD2 running in the background on multiplayer, run a virus scan, create multiple sigs in adobe photoshop, download songs on limewire, sync my ipod, browse the internet, and install software to an EXTERNAL hard drive all at once with 90-95 percent processor utilization and 90 or above percent memory ( i have 2048 mb ddr2 pc2 5300 in dual channel) utilization.

If your like me, in college, tight on budget, go for dual core (the Denali)
or if you got da money! go for a quad (the corvette)

By the way, a fast, high end dual core can with a nice graphics card (250 bucks or up) and at least 2 gigs of 667 mhz dual channel RAM, you will be able to destroy almost anything you throw at your computer.
With a quad core, you will be able to destroy almost all products/software on market for next 5-6 years to come. Easily.

3 years, 4 if you're an optimist. Still, not too bad

If you're building in the next few months as you said, wait untill the July 22nd pricedrops and add a Q6600 to your system I'd say.

Lyngvi.

3 years, 4 if you're an optimist. Still, not too bad

If you're building in the next few months as you said, wait untill the July 22nd pricedrops and add a Q6600 to your system I'd say.

Lyngvi.

Unless your old school like me and had a discontinued compaq brand presario for 7 years, which literally got destroyed instead of doing the destroying...literally the hard drive melted along with the memory modules and then the piece caught on fire because of 6 years worth of dust

I've got a quad core and it tears through compiling and video editing. If you want to do anything of that nature, the quad core is the way to go. Also good if you want to run many application simultaneously. When I first got my quad core, I tried to slow it down by running as many applications as I could. All I can say is that I lost that fight