Quote Originally Posted by Zucker2k View Post
You need to be more specific. I'm not going to start a debate here. Unless the game is capable of using all four cores, EFFICIENTLY, it's no contest. Notice I was very specific in telling him what speficially he'll gain if he clocked a E8600 to 4.5Ghz. Even a quad clocked at 4Ghz is only good in synthetic benchmarks in terms of raw procesing power, nothing else. However a dual-core at 4.5 ghz while being easier on board components, also churns at faster clock cycles which is very good for all games. The higher overclock also translates into higher bus, faster ram reads, etc.
I just went through this after reading threads on quad vs dual till my eyes bleed. I finally decided to get an E8600 to replace my old Q6600 last week. I easily overclocked it to 4.4gig without any extreme volts. It will go much farther but for 24/7 that's enough for me (440X10). I have a 4870X2 and game a lot. THE DIFFERENCE (READ THAT IMPROVEMENT) IN GAMING AND GENERAL PERFORMANCE WAS MASSIVE! You can read all the threads you want on this but my own experience in gaming is that its no contest. The overclocked E8600 with the 4870X2 makes my games fly. No substitute for personal experience. My Q6600 was at 3.3gig and can't come close to the performance in gaming of the overclocked E8600. Case closed for me.