Quad or Dual? and GPU Quandary

[Paul Boy]

Hi, I'm going to build myself a new PC, primarily for Sim Gaming (Rfactor, iRacing) what do you think would perform better, Quad or Dual and what CPU would you go for?

Also I'm in a quandary about graphics cards, thinking about a 9800 x2 or a GTX280?

Thanks in advance

edit: what i forgot to mention is that i will be running a triple monitor setup with softth, if that makes any difference

[staffsMike]

No idea if the monitor setup makes a difference but my money would be on the Quad core (but if it really is just gaming then dual will suffice) and the GTX280 which at around £250 if you scout around is quite a reasonable price for the whopping performance it delivers.

What resolutions will you be running?

[2Cold Scorpio]

I'd say quad; dual-core is on its way out, and quad cores aren't much more expensive right now anyways. The only reason I didn't go quad when I built my rig in December last year was because the Nahalem chips were (and still are) right around the corner, so I decided to save money in the short-term because I figure I'll be upgrading sometime next year anyways.

[Olmy]

I have a Quad Core Q6600, but alot of people say that you're better off getting one of the higher clocked Dual core intels which perform better clock for clock. Unless you're doing video/sound editing or other intensive processing such as 3D rendering you won't get much out of those extra two cores. Even now most games coming out don't support dual core processors well.

As for the graphics card, have you considered the ATI HD 4870? They're far cheaper than the GT 280, and trade blows with that card in certain games and performs very well in everything else. Its the best value card in that price range at the moment.

[Crevan]

I don't know much about multi-monitor setups, but aren't most GPUs you'd be interested in now come with just 2 output ports? How would you run 3 monitors on 2 outputs? I'm curious myself =)

[Ypnos]

I don't know much about multi-monitor setups, but aren't most GPUs you'd be interested in now come with just 2 output ports? How would you run 3 monitors on 2 outputs? I'm curious myself =)

I was thinking that too, glad someone else asked first lol

[staffsMike]

You can get a device, matrox triple head or something which allows you to run 3 monitors from 2 ports.

[Fraz]

He said in the first post:

softth: http://www.kegetys.net/SoftTH/

I presume he'll just have a cheapo pci graphics card for the third output?

[v3n]

I would got for a dual core as they are easier to overclock to high speed on low volts and those games would not use more than 1 core anyway so the faster the single core the better.

I run my 3 monitors via the Matrox triplehead device TH2GO which runs off one monitor output.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/surro...s/zone/racing/