Are Quad Core or Dual core best for gaming?

[Noniy]

I have been looking beetween a few CPU's and i am not sure if Dual core or Quad core is faster for gaming...


Which of the two specifically are faster for gaming?

Quad Core Q6700

OR

Dual core E8400



Please answer to the best of your abilites.

Thanks
Noniy

 

[Snake91839]

The e8400 will give give you a better performance in games. The reason for this is that games rarely use two cores and never use four. The e8400 has faster clock speeds per core than the Q6700. As far as the game is concerned, the other 2 or 3 cores don't exist.

 

[Prototype]

Currently, games only use 2 cores and core 2 duo gives u more fps but if u get the quad u loss some fps in the games and u will have futureproof

the quad are hotter than duo cz it has more cores

 

[Wildside]

Hellgate: London uses dual-core, im sure some games use quad-core.

 

[mattew]

well there are games which will be designed for use of four cores thus keeping future in aspect u can go in for quad core...
but as still the price hasn't fallen much till now it would be prudent to wait for a bit more time

 

[solidsteve]

you will find that the E8400 will be a slight bit better but for a quad core to be near the same price i would go for that

plus if you get a semi decent mother board i also hear that theres a option on it to spread the system usage over all 4 core's anyway

 

[Noniy]

I guess ill just go with the E8400 for now, since most games use dual core and not quad.


Thanks for the help.

 

[veedubfreak]

Age of Conan uses all 4 cores. And if you have played it, you know you need as much power as you can get if you want to turn everything to max and get good framerates.

 

[NightSurge]

The reason for this is that games rarely use two cores and never use four.

Not true. As Veedub stated, Age of Conan uses 4 cores, as well as many others! Lost Planet, Half-Life 2: Episode 1 & 2, just to name a few right off the top of my head. And besides, Intel and AMD are already in the works for 6 core and 12 core CPU's by 2010! Most games that will be developed in the future will have a high chance of being 4 core or MORE compatible. If you don't want to upgrade for, say 3 years, then get the quad-core and get the Q6600 over the Q6700 since the additional price for the x1 extra multiplier and .2GHz isn't justified.

 

[Sora]

TECHNICALLY, right now a good dual-core such as an E8400 or E8500 can overclock to a higher speed and since the games don't utilize all cores the chip with the faster speed is better. an E8400 vs a Q6600 both overclocked the same would give similar results however the E8400 and E8500 can overclock almost a ghz higher on average making them better gamers. Right now and probably for a little while longer that is.