Dual or Quad core for video editing?

[NoxNight]

Hi there! I've decided its time to get a new laptop and I'm having a hard time deciding what would be the best choice. I want to make sure I get one that will meet my needs. I mainly use my laptop for video capture and editing. This requires me to run two applications at once; the capture software and the game that I capture from. I don't normally get into the editing program until I close down the game.
My question is this; what would be better for my situation? A dual core processor or a quad core processor? I've been doing a lot of research and I've found that dual cores are faster, but quad cores are better if you're running multiple applications at once. In the case of video capture/editing, would it be worth the sacrifice of speed to get the quad core? I'm not sure which one would be more important considering I'm not just editing, I'm capturing from a game.
The laptop I have now used to work great for WoW, but its horrible for video capture; the clips always come out jumpy. I'm not sure if its due to my processor or my RAM. I have a Toshiba Satellite L355-S0975, Intel Celeron Processor 585, 3GB PC6400 DDR2 800MHz SDRAM, 160GB HDD
Any help is appreciated. Thanks so much!

 

[amuffin]

If your video editing program can take advantage of multiple cores the quad will be faster.

When you capture games, it's based on how fast the write speed of your drive is.

 

[excella1221]

Quad-core. Video rendering is heavily CPU-intensive.
Would be better if it's an i7 for hyperthreading.

 

[nekulturny]

Is there a particular reason you need a laptop to handle this kind of work? As mentioned the quad is a better idea, but why a laptop? Is portable video editing really *that* essential? Only reason I say so is because cost to performance ratio is much more favorable on a desktop.

 

[jaguarskx]

Basically it depends on the video codec and the program you want to use to encode video. I believe DivX supports 2 cores; I have not used it in a while. XviD claims it can support two cores, but based on my experience with it, that support is poor. It seems that at least 80% of the time it is only using one core. The x.264 codex can make use of at least 4 cores.

For capturing video during gameplay you definitely want 4 cores since video encoding is very CPU intensive. Capturing video while playing games on a dual core CPU will result in choppy gameplay and dropped frame rates.

 

[unreal9400]

Quad core of course.

 

[songorocosongo]

Quad core of course.

yep! quad core all the way. but keep in mind nekulturny's post

 

[InvalidError]

you definitely want 4 cores since video encoding is very CPU intensive.

Unless the capture/encoding software can use QuickSync in which case encoding 1080p h264 becomes trivial on 3rd-gen i3/5/7.