Poll: Advice please - Dual Core or Quad Core?

[SenseOfTumour]

Hi folks, I'm gaming on a budget still, and I've narrowed down my options to two things, barebone systems that I'll transfer my radeon 4850, HDD and dvd writer to.

a Quad Core AMD system at 2.6GHZ:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?BB-6204G

or, a Dual Core Intel at 2.8GHZ:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?BB-634G

I'm just wondering, as a mid level gamer, what would people recommend, is quad core going to be the needed thing a year down the line?

I've had one guy, a tech from the US, recommend the Intel dual core, even tho its only 0.2ghz faster, but he seemed so anti AMD, that I'm wondering if there's a hint of intel love swinging the advice

So given the options, would you take a slightly slow quad or a faster dual?

At present I'm playing WOW, GRID, Burnout Paradise, all fine, but I'd really like to play some newer stuff, while not expecting to play anything too amazing, and I'm still on an old monitor, so I won't be going above 1280x1024 resolution anyways.

I'm looking at something that'll keep me at least sort of in the gaming loop for a couple of years, tho I don't expect to even start at the cutting edge, but I'm on a 1.8ghz single core AMD sempron now, which is really struggling.

Thanks for reading, and more so for opinions and advice.

 

[Communist partisan]

Quad core is better

 

[lockeslylcrit]

Might want to look around for QC vs DC pages on the internet, such as: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000942.html

This should give you an idea of what to expect.

 

[Woodsey]

Quad core - most games aren't really taking advantage of them yet, but soon enough they will.

 

[Distorted Stu]

Quad, BECAUSE MORE IS BETTER

 

[Signa]

As far as the AMD Vs Intel debate, I've done some research on tomshardware, and this is my conclusion:

AMD: Great Gaming CPU, mediocre general purpose CPU

Intel: Great Gaming CPU, Great general purpose CPU

Now I didn't look at the two models you have posted (I'm really tired right now), but when I was building my PC 6 months ago, anything that AMD did better at than Intel, Intel did more better. There were several games that AMD performed better on, but then the Intel would unpack .Rar files and perform video compression in 2/3-1/2 the time. Generally speaking, I recommend the AMDs for people who are just going to game with their PCs, and Intel for the people who do everything. AMDs are usually cheaper than Intels for that trade-off, but it looks like you found two in your budget, and the Intel is a Quad-Core. I'd go with that.

 

[Arachon]

Quad, but get an Intel i5 or i7, I think they'll last you longer than AMD CPUs, as well as AMD tend to have some compability issues with certain games.

I've got an i5 in my computer-turned-jet engine, and it runs very well, sure, only 2.33Ghz, but clock speed is not everything, the quad cores help a lot, then there's things such as FSB size to consider.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Heh, well, I'm on a limited budget so the new i5/i7 stuff is out of reach for me, plus I don't have the confidence to build my own, tho I'm fine with adding hard drives, memory, graphics cards etc.