Is quad core worth it over dual core?

Running what??? Present games will be faster on dual.

Mike.

What you need to understand is the speed rating means nothing. It's all about the architecture of the chip which defines the performance....

Regarding seeing an improvement from your 6000+ to a newer processor. It depends on which model. No one knows what the performance will be like from the new phenoms since they aren't out yet..But the lowest phenom (2.0 ghz) imo should beat your current set up....But we really don't know till we see it...

But do keep in mind mhz rating doesn't mean anything without good architecture...

As the year goes on (2008) you will see the Phenom X4 clock speeds higher, but im not too sure how high. I dont think past 3.0? Its possilbe though I think...

Im kinda interested to see how these tri-cores will do and and what the price of them will be. Intels quad is going to be cheap so this can be interesting.

I say go for quad core. Now is the time considering that there may not be much use yet but getting one now will prove very nice since you wont ave to buy a new processor when they are needed.

Think about it. You buy a dual core instead and roughly 6-12 months later games and applications start making use of more than just 2 cores. Then you have to buy another quad core to replace your other dual core if you want to be able to play the latest games in all their glory.

It isn't that far away. Half Life 2 Episode 2 already makes use of dual/quad cores by using them to calculate the physics effects and giving a result thats equivalent to a PhysiX card. Lost Planet does too. I am sure that Crysis will. And according to Valve, the more cores you have the better the physics.

I say when the quad core comes out that you want, be it a AMD Phenom or C2Q, get it. It will save you from having to rebuild a new system every year especially if you are not the richest guy in the world.

LOL...you just proved my point...

That's architecture buddy. Anyone that understands computers knows that speed rating doesn't mean "everything". It's the architecture of the chip that defines the performance. The OP asked if he'd see a performance improvement going from a faster clocked dual core to a slow clocked quad. The architecture of the chip is what defines performance...Just like you stated regarding the Celeron and C2D/AMD differences...A faster clocked celeron would obviously lose to lower clocked C2D/AMD...It's in the archiecture and specs...mhz rating doesn't mean EVERYTHING....it's what ties into the speed of the cpu running on it's ARCHITECTURE.

Now back to the OP's question. Since no one has a Phenom processor, no one knows how it will perform. But obviously AMD wants to release a "better" processor...no point stumbling backwards. But since we don't have any benchmarks yet we won't know how it will perform. It will obviously perform better then the X2 series....As technology needs to take a step forward and not backward. But regarding the cores..It depends if the application is multithreaded or not. If it can handle more cores you will see a bigger improvement. You'll also be able to multitask to a higher defree then with the dual. In terms of mhz to mhz rating...Barcelona will be faster..But no one knows by how much till we have some Phenom benchmarks. How much faster we don't know yet...Time will tell.

i disagree, by the time most programs ( and even games ) make use of quad threads (some already do, but barly any) the recent quad cores will be really outdated. like, having one know is good, more performance, but you shouldnt by one with the future in mind

sound of crickets chirping...