All I do is gaming,no encoding,no rendering.I am not into overclockin too.What do you suggest?

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/s [...] i=3038&p=8

E6850

If you intend to keep this CPU for less than a year then go with the E6850. Longer term the quad is a smarter choice because game makers will learn to take advantage of cores 3 and 4.

The choice for you is the e6850. I think it will work for you for more than a year before the game developers are really utilizing four cores effectively, which will give the new 45nm Penryn chips time to come down in price.

Which games do you play?

I play SupCom and there are some games you can only get into if you have a dual core CPU. Have yet to see a quad-core restriction, though.

Im only playing cod2,titan quest and CC:TW atm,but I plan on getting the new MOH,Crysis,Cod4.

Crysis will take advantage of Core2Quad

e6850. not enough progs will take advantage of quad core, especially games from this year. maybe future games, but with that power, your more than alright

Yeah, you'll be fine with either CPU. What you really need to worry about is the graphic card

Havent decided about the cpu yet .The graphic gard will be the 8800 GTS 640 probably.

In the article clearly says that a 2.4Ghz Quad-Core is about ~4% better than the 3.0Ghz Dual-core

I have a Q6600, never overclocked before but with a Thermaltake V1 cpu cooler, I got my 2.4 GHz up to 3.08 GHz very easily.

E6850, because a Q6600 lack in clockspeed will be much more affected in performance than the E6850s lack in cores because of softwares current and even future utilization of core count.

Go with the E6850.

The lack of Clockspeed could always be addressed, but the lack of Cores can't be addressed as easily.

E6850 @ Stock = Fast Soldier with only one boot(Can't afford running shoes or another boot)

Q6600(G0 Stepping @ Stock)= Fast Solders with both feet with Running shoes (Just too lazy to go fast; unless you speed them up)

I'd go for the one with shoes and make them go faster

I was trying to make the same decision a month ago or so. I went with the E6850 and have 0 regrets.

He said he's not into overclocking. Maybe read the first post before replying. He is just gaming and games right now are just starting to take advantage of dual cores, that's like 2 years after they were introduced. It would not surprise me at all if we didn't see a decent amount of games optimized for quads for another 2 years. Plus, even the one game that supprts quads(Supreme Commander) barely outperforms the E6850, whereas the E6850 will ouperform the Q6600 in every other game.
Maybe it's just me, but the shoes comparison made no sense.

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/s [...] i=3038&p=8

Not just looking at Gaming, but overall he might see none(If at all) an advantage @ Stock both while in the tests the Quad-Core resulted in about ~4% gains. I'm pretty sure he won't be playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R every waking moment of that computers life to appreciate that meagre 8% improvement.

The Graphic Card is usually the limiting factor for him and I think those few percent gain in Games come from the 267FSB gain, not the lack of Overall speed if ~10% is the gain in gaming than a 2.66Ghz Quad-core would match if not beat a Core 2 Duo @ 3Ghz in everything.

totaly agreed ^^^ but if he only does gaming , then E6850

If he does keep that machine for the next 2 Years worth of games, the Quad-Core will be much more of his friend than Clockspeed, most games will take advantage of Multi-cores and that 10% fall back will become more like a -25% disadvantage, E6850 vs Q6600.

But if like any red blooded man. I'm sure he'd appreciate 10 windows streaming Porn on 4 Cores.
Just saying