If you had to choose say, a dual processor 3.0 ghz or a quad 2.4.... what is the way to go?

I would think Quad all the way but then games usually say a certain speed is required, so I guess the question is if a game requires 3.0 ghz.... would a quad 2.4 do the trick?

Thinking about getting an alienware for upcoming games like Spore, Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3.

Get the dual core.

How many games take advantage of more than two cores?

I guess in the future more and more games will, but right now I'm pretty sure you'll get better performance out of the dual-core.

get the Quad its a monster processor .. to answer the question about the speed i tell u that i have a 3.0 ghz cpu & a laptop with 2.0 ghz core2 processor .. all the games that i have and said that i should have 3.0 ghz run far better in my laptop... so i think the speed is not necessary.

If your primary use will be games, then the dual core as most games will not take advantage of the extra cores.

If your primary use will be audio/video processing apps that are SMP capable, then get the quad-core.

Thanks for the advice :o)

I want it for games mostly. But I also want to get Avid because they taught us Final Cut Pro at school and I would like to know both for the job market.

Also I want to try my hand at game development on the XNA Microsoft software.

At the end of the day though, it only NEEDS to play Diablo 3. That alone would justify a purchase, but they haven't even released system requirements so I'm just assuming it would be okay.

Here is the setup I want to go with if I do go through with it:

3.0 ghz dual intel
4 gigs of RAM
2 512Mb Nvidia cards, I forget which one exactly. Direct X 10 fully compatible.
250 gig hard drive, cause I don't need any more than that
20x DVD burner, not going with Blue Ray


So I know it's not exactly future proof, but would it do what I want it to do and play most games for the next 3 to 5 years?

You should go with ATI - they are far more future proof as direct x 10.1 specification is implemented in direct x 11 so it should leave the competition behind as that feature gets implemented. Also you should stick with 1 card unless you know what you're doing, SLI isn't noob proof enough to recomend to just anyone.

Btw, Blizzard is implementing direct x 10.1 so theres your reason right there, it gives ATI cards a 10-20% advantage over Nvidia.

Also if you like strategy games online = intense/epic, you should go for the Quad core because Strategy games/rendering actually use those extra cores.

Yea and currently ati's 4850 is much cheaper and cost per performance is way better at the moment for ati. Should look into the 4850 series ;).

Depends what the price difference is. Quad core will give you a whole lot more head room to do other things in the future. Multi-threaded apps, encoding, decoding, porno. You know, necessary things. :P

ATI Radeon 4870