Dual-core A64 or Opty?

[SourceQuench]

Now I have a difficult descision to make...

Can't decide on either the 165 or the 3800+ (although leaning towards the 3800+ as it's cheaper...)

[nichomach]

I'd get the Opty, myself, but then I'm very happy with mine (albeit it's a 170 - I wanted the 10x multi).

[b0redom]

Can someone explain to me why dual core doesn't yield advantages in games? Surely all the other guff Windows runs in the background will run on the other core, so you should get at least a little performance increase?

It doesn't make much difference in your case anyway, as your games will most likely be graphics card bound, so you're better off getting an X2 so that when games come along supporting multi core stuff you're ready to roll and you won't need to upgrade again.

Tom

[Pie_uk]

dual core works in oblivion, the trouble with it , is it means people such as valve would need to reprogram the game which of course is very time consuming and money orentated. this is what i am led to belive anyhoo

[b0redom]

Yeah, but next gen engines will incorporate it as more and more people get the chips. It means they'll be able to do more funky stuff and license the technology to other devs etc. It'll come, just like new shader models and stuff, and you certainly won't be worse off.....

Tom

[SourceQuench]

Thanks everyone for the very useful replies, thoughts and suggestions - it really is appreciated!

In the end I went for the X2 3800+ as I am sure it's got to be better than what I am using at the moment, and as was mentioned above, I can use the money I save to put it towards that 7900 or X1900

Thanks again people!