| Vexxmania said: Strictly for gaming, you wouldn't need much more than a dual-core processor. Namely the AMD Phenom II X2 550 black edition. It runs at a cool 3.10 Ghz (3.8-4 Ghz overclocked) and tops most quad-cores in many games (like Crysis). |
IME, more never hurts when it comes to CPU. I honestly never advise people who seriously want to game, to cut any corners on their CPU purchase just to save a few $$. It comes down to personal preference and need of course, but from what I have seen over the years - people who spend the extra few $$ where it counts on things like CPU and video card usually seem to end up happier in the long run than those who dont.
Just one minor example was GTA4 launch on PC... up until that point many had been saying that dual core was enough or even better due to higher clock speed... with GTA4, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth so to speak amongst folks who did not have at least a tri-core and wanted to play GTA4. Games that make good use of two threads will benifit from more cores, especially if you set thread affinity to cores that are not being used by system and background processes.
Its true that quad is not a total necessity, but I know I personally would not go back to fewer cores willingly. Quad is worth it in many, and often subtle ways.
