thats why this is a useless thread - people read this and say wow i dont need a dual core - noobie!
The article clearly shows cases where dual core is MUCH better than single core. Stop making decisions for people, let them reach their own conclusions.
Only an idiot would conclude that there isn't much difference between a single core and dual core in gaming, especially in this multithreaded age of gaming.
I never turn of various background applications when gaming because it never makes any real difference. Running AntiVirus and some of the other small start up programs doesn't use enough CPU power to matter at all, not like I'm running Prime or Decoding videos while playing.
Any way, what I got from the article is that a couple more gigs of memory may help my system with some of the new games. I figure if my X6700 is gonna get loaded finally, I might as well make sure that I have the Memory avalible to keep it loaded. Also it looks like gamers will be getting a good upgrade cycle with the new games. Prepare to get a DX10 card, a Quad core, and 3 gigs of ram by 2008 if you want to be able to run the new games in all their glory. I just want to know about 64 bit code? Right now most people are limited to 3 gig of system memory, wouldn't a Quad core, especially an AMD w/IMC, benifit from 64 bit code so that more code could be loaded directly instead of having the games reload at points or swapping files to system memory during game play? What new games will be 64 bit and require a minimum of 2 gigs and be able to utilize more memory. Hell, right now BF2 requires 1.5 gig if you want to run it worth a crap, and it is no real CPU hog.