two or four cores

[amddiesel]

Been debating about building a new rig(Intel) and it seems im a little scared at this moment about dropping a grand again.
Q#1 Dual core or quad core for strictly gaming? I dont compress audio or video
Q#2 Socket 775 is coming to end of lifecycle 1-2 years right? I screwed up and built a 939 rig months before they came out with am2 and it really pissed me off with no upgrade path


Any suggestions would be helpful

 

[aadamszc]

Hiya,

1. Hmm...what would you think about getting for each of them? E6850/Q6600? Would you overclock?

The thing with gaming right now, noone really takes advantage of the four cores yet. Therefore, if you were to just compare the clocks -- the the e6850 would preform better now.

The Q6600 is a little more future proof, and if you OCed it -- it could potentially perform as well as the 6850.

2. I don't really see a whole new, life changing socket coming out in the near future.

-Adam

 

[zenmaster]

You can't stop progress in computers.

Soon DDR3 will be standard.
It's too expensive now.

Yes, Intel will have a new Socket for their Line of Chips to be introduced after the new upcoming line.

Just Upgrade when you need to upgrade.
Buy what you need when you buy.

Trying to buy too much into the future is costly and rarely works.

It looks like your current system is not too bad.
Unless your current games are not working I would hold off.

Perhaps drop in an 8800GT which would be transferrable in the future.

 

[jaguarskx]

Yeah, if strictly for gaming you don't really need to upgrade the CPU. A new video card will improve performance. But don't upgrade the GPU unless you really need to, the X1950XTX is still very capable.

If you plan on playing something like Crysis at 1920 x 1200 with very high quality graphics and AA enabled using DX10, then I don't think even dual 8800GTX Ultras will be able to give you very high framerates