Going dual or Quad for gaming? Dual is better right?

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=3038&p=8
If you're strictly building a gaming box, you'll get more performance out of the dual-core E6850. However, if you do any encoding or 3D rendering at all, the quad-core Q6600 is a better buy. Our pick is the Q6600 and if you want to make up the performance difference you can always overclock to E6850 speeds, but the chip only makes sense if you're running apps that can take advantage of four cores. As the chart above illustrates, those applications are almost exclusively limited to video encoding and 3D rendering.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/c [...] q6600.html

So, we think Core 2 Quad Q6600 seems to be a much more attractive offering these days than Core 2 Duo E6850.

However, those computer users who do not want to mess with processor overclocking may think differently. In this case Core 2 Duo E6850 with 25% higher clock speed performs better in a lot of applications, including games. Moreover, it is also more economical. As a result, the most optimal choice for a system working at nominal speeds would depends a lot on the type of tasks it is intended for.

Nevertheless, we shouldn’t forget that most upcoming applications and games are being designed with multi-threading in mind. That is why Core 2 Quad Q6600 may be a more promising solution even if used in its nominal mode.

I would agree that the E6850 is likely a better performer in games. Though I've read the the Q6600 is overclocked quite well, and that it is deffiently more appealing for people who don't want to upgrade for a few years. I guess It all comes down to what you want. Any dual core (Core 2) out right now will work fine with any of the new game titles comming out. I found that out with Bioshock. Though seeing as not many apps out right now are created to use 4 cores, a dual core should be able to do the job.

yeah^^,but they will run well on dual cores too

I agree about Lost Planet on a quad core. I run it on a Q6600 at 3.0 GHz and it uses quite a lot of my CPU resources at some points in the game. I have recorded up to 80% at times and the play looks very good at 1280X1024 on a GTS-640.

no - with q6600 running 3.6ghz you get 2 partically free cores for the future

with the increasing popularity of quad cores game developers will be making games optimised for more cores is just a matter of time

Wrong, most 1333MHZ CPUs (like E6850) OC very nice, i have seen many people with E6850 @ 3.6-3.8

Corsair HX620 is a good PSU that should serve you well and give you plenty of headroom for future upgrades.

EDIT: OOPS! Somehow I missed that the OP was going to do SLI although I did take a Q6600 @3.0GHz into account. The HX620 should still work but won't give you headroom like you'd have with a single card.

-mcg

I actually bought a month ago a OCZ 600W power supply and am really liking it. It is teh uber quite..,

get a q6600 for $266, and OC it to 3.0 (333x9) and be done with it.