I wouldnt hold my breath for dual core games anyway. Sure there may be some "enhancements" to certain games, but in order to create a dual core optimized game the code would need to be completely re-written to take advantage of multi-threading etc Which just wont happen due to the way games are written today and the prevelance of single core CPU's for at least the next 3-4 years (may be sooner depending on trends). This coupled with the difficulty of writing real time multi threaded programs will put dual core CPU's out of the gaming market for a long time to come. AMD Athlon64 3500+ 1024MB 512x2 Dual Channel Corsair TwinX Coolermaster Wavemaster 120GB Seagate SATA HDD Gecube X800XT Platinum Logitch 5.1 Surround LG 16x Dual Layer DVD Countle

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If you get 2gigs of ram, get two 1024mb modules instead of 4x512, since having 4 modules on amd64 systems lowers your perfomance. Free

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I am going to 2 1 gig sticks I didnt like the idea of having to replace 4 512Mb sticks if I wanted to go above 2 gigs.

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Although 'some' not written from the ground up for dual core optimization, theses games and more to come do take advantage of two physical (dual core) or two logical cores (hyperthreading). Call of duty 2, Quake 4, Elder Scrolls oblivion, Unreal Engine 3, RoboHordes, Age of Empires III, Battlefield 2, Black & White 2, The Movies, Peter Jackson’s King Kong, Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland, and World of Warcraft. All these games are very graphically intense, and thus would benefit greatly from the additional core resulting in better, smoother game play. Some Games, are written in a way that the physics are on one thread and the A.I is handed on another. Probably every game that will be a major title from this point on will support dual core to some extent. Not to mention ATI's and nVidia's drivers are now multi-threaded, giving an additional boost to dual core performance. In addtion Both Intel and AMD are working exclusively on Dual Core, Both have said to be focusing 110% on dual core. So in other words multi-core is the future, and that future started yesterday! If you dont want to believe me, just take a look at intel's and AMD's roudmap, not a 'single' single core CPU on there! So you may infact want to hold your breath. Common sense not required

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"All these games are very graphically intense, and thus would benefit greatly from the additional core resulting in better, smoother game play." Are these the great benefits of which you speak for dual core? http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=217&page=2 Looks like a 10% improvement, which is significantly less than the improvement jump from a 3000 (what the 3800 performed like before the 1.01 patch) to a 3700, which costs $60 less or so. Dual core for gaming makes little sense economically for the time being. "Probably every game that will be a major title from this point on will support dual core to some extent." To some extent, sure. You could say it benefits because the video drivers have been optimized, or whatever you want to say. The reality though is it's going to take time to see real significant gains from dual core. Increasingly, more titles will be optimized for dual core, but even then, the optimizations will fail to take full advantage of what dual core can do until game designers get it right. "In addtion Both Intel and AMD are working exclusively on Dual Core, Both have said to be focusing 110% on dual core." 1. That's inaccurate. (see below) 2. Just because the hardware is going that route, it doesn't mean that software will be optimized to take advantage of it rapidly. Remember MMX? SSE? SSE2? SSE3? 3dnow? How many apps have been coded to benefit from those? 3. This overlooks the fact that CPU makers are finding it increasingly more difficult to up the clock speed. It's simply easier and less costly to do dual core. Since this is a fundamental shift in CPU technology, it will require a fundamental change by programmers for their code to run optimally. That's not an overnight process. "If you dont want to believe me, just take a look at intel's and AMD's roudmap, not a 'single' single core CPU on there!" I don't believe you, and I looked at AMD's roadmap, which has an Orleans core CPU that's single core. It's the future, no doubt. Don't get me wrong. But you don't need it now. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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You got in ahead of me hero =D Look at hyperthreading, i remember having the same discussion back when that was the new hot thing, where did that lead us? And while dual cores may be the future i dont see everyone instantaneously dropping thier single core CPU's. Single core will still be the main computing platform for at least a few years to come, maybe as little as <2 or as high as >3 AMD Athlon64 3500+ 1024MB 512x2 Dual Channel Corsair TwinX Coolermaster Wavemaster 120GB Seagate SATA HDD Gecube X800XT Platinum Logitch 5.1 Surround LG 16x Dual Layer DVD Countle

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Houston, See also "64-bit". Unlike many other technologies, software vendors will be forced to optimize for dual core (and 64-bit) simply because that will eventually be the only way for their apps to increase in performance as the GHz race takes a backseat to the multicore race. Like it's been said, both 64-bit and dual core/multicore are the future. Both will inevitably become mainstream. It's a question of when, and what should people be buying now. Look at 64-bit as somewhat of a reference. 64-bit processors have been available for quite some time. In fact, they're far more mainstream than dual core CPU's. Yet little software has been optimized for it. While I predict a quicker move to optimize for dual core, the point is it will take time, and you're safe to not jump on the bandwagon of dual core now, especially when good socket 939 motherboards will allow for an easy upgrade path to dual core later. Corn chips are no place for a mighty warrior!

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One point i would like to make however, is that while dual core WILL become the standard, will it be so quickly adopted for games? Games developers / publishers are always complaining about cost vs. return in developing games and programming multi-threaded games will require a much much higher investment in time and money (at least until the tools and skills are more widely available), in my oppinion we won't see multithreaded games until well after multithreaded applications are WAY more mainstream. I'm trying to find the article i had discussing this with one of the developers of farcry, and he even states that he see's no real need or benefit to programming multithreaded games, just becasue of the way that games are seen and used. AMD Athlon64 3500+ 1024MB 512x2 Dual Channel Corsair TwinX Coolermaster Wavemaster 120GB Seagate SATA HDD Gecube X800XT Platinum Logitch 5.1 Surround LG 16x Dual Layer DVD Countle

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"will it be so quickly adopted for games?" Good question. I think yes, it will be adopted relatively quickly compared to client apps. The reason for this is games are usually the apps that challenge PC hardware the most in the mainstream arena. Therefore, to keep developing more and more advanced games that need additional CPU power, developers MUST code for multicore. The additional GHz-age will come from more and more from the adding of cores, not as much from a ramping up of clockspeed. Necessity is the mother of invention...and marketing. ;-) We see games optimized for 64-bit such as Far Cry, with no real significant gains in performance as of now. But here again, gamers seem to be very susceptible to marketing hype when it comes to hardware. (Look at all the people on this very site completely convinced they need SLI video cards, dual core CPU's, etc. to game well, when it's "elephant in the room" obvious they don't!) Just watch - Simply tagging your game as optimized for dual core will sell you copies! The next thing you know, people will be claiming dual core is necessary even when the benchmarks prove it's not. Sound familiar? It's happening right now. It was mentioned in this very thread that dual core optimizations in current games show the clear advantage of dual core. The benchmarks I provided showed that a dual core optimization patch allowed the dual core to run the game 10% faster than what *IT* previously ran it. Well, if an X2 3800 runs it at say 60fps without the patch, it means a Athlon 64 3000 ran it at the same speed, since benchmarks show consistently that non optimized for dual core games ran as well on a dual core as a comparable single core of one of the individual cores that the dual core has. After the patch, the X2 jumped to 66fps (gain of 10%). Now, compare that to an Athlon 64 3700. The 3700 beats the 3000 by more than 10%, not to mention the 3700 costs some $70 less than the X2 3800. The answer is clear - dual core is not a good value for gaming as of now. If you want it for other reasons (I'd love to have one for my virtual network environment), by all means, go for it. This still will take time though. Coding for SMP/multicore is fundamentally different from a programming perspective, not to mention coding for it at a high quality. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. www.redcross.org

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Hero, You said above: "(Look at all the people on this very site completely convinced they need SLI video cards, dual core CPU's, etc. to game well, when it's "elephant in the room" obvious they don't!)" With my above posted system I am going to get one of the new 7900gt SLI boards. Is this going to be too much? ie. Will my system be a bottle neck? Oh and I have decided to go with a 3700+ after reading everyone's advice. Is there any other changes you would make? My real game of choice right now is Everquest 2 and I will probably still keep to mainly multi-player on-line games for the most part.

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My point was people think they need bleeding edge to play. The reality is you don't need SLI. Bottlenecking really has nothing to do with this. Good choice on the 3700. If I were buying a video card, I'd get the 7800GT. At $260ish in price, it's still a slamming card. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina! www.redcross.org

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Yup but for about $50 more I can get the 7900gt and its showing better performance than the 7800gtx. Anyone have any more advice I will be making the purchase either Friday or Monday and want to get all me duckies in a row.

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Well, if you can get a 7900GT for $50 more, go for it. Please help survivors of Hurricane Katrina. www.redcross.org

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The 7900 GT has better performance than the 7800 GTX? Care to provide any links? Michael J

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Sure here ya go: http://firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_7900_gt_gtx_performance/

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