Dual core CPUs and gaming?

[arthur666]

Hello all. With some good looking games on the horizon (Neverwinter 2, Medieval 2, etc...) I have been thinking of upgrading my system. I haven't been paying much attention to games for the last 4 months and am kinda out of the loop. Do most new games support dual cpu, or would I still be better off with a faster single core?

[tomkear2006]

At the moment games are still being designed to be played on a single core CPU so at present you would get better preformance for a single core...providing you are thinking of running the game and no other applications in the background, a dual core is better at multi-tasking.

That said, gaming is sure to take more advantage of dual cores in the near future and they will gradually all move over to dual core due to the better performance. For this reason it would be sensible to get a dual core to future proof your system.

There are advantages of both but personally I would go for the dual core option!

[arthur666]

The price of the 3800X2 dual core is a little more than the 4000 single core, and my system is for gaming only. I might go with the 4000 if most games don't use dual cores. The only one I heard can use them is Oblivion, which runs acceptably on my current machine.

[tomkear2006]

The choice is yours!

I would go with the Dual Core and run things like anti-virus and MSN on one core and a game on the other core.

Games will be dual core soon anyway...some processes on one core and others on the other.

[blue60007]

I would go with the dual core too. The CPU really doesn't make that big of a difference in most games - it's the video card that really dictates how the game will perform. If you want an upgrade (for gaming), I'd upgrade the video card if anything.

[arthur666]

... The CPU really doesn't make that big of a difference in most games - it's the video card that really dictates how the game will perform. If you want an upgrade (for gaming), I'd upgrade the video card if anything.

Hmmm. My computer does run everything I've thrown at it. Maybe I'll save my $140 to put towards a new vid card whenever DirectX 10 comes out.
Thanks.

[blue60007]

Yeah...if it's doing what you want now then I there's not a huge need to upgrade...eventually you'll have to upgrade it, like when DX10 comes out, but you could start saving for a new video card until then (it'll probably be at least a year until the good DX10 cards come out).

If you're looking for more CPU performance then upgrade the CPU...but then again it looks like the 3800+X2 is basically two 3200+'s (both run at 2GHz, 512kb l2 cache, etc). Dual core is nice...kinda a tough decision. Your money though...

Might be worth it to save up some more money to do a bigger upgrade. Just some thoughts...