For gaming is a 600+mhz faster clocked dual core higher performing than a quad -600Mhz clock speed

As the title says, will a dual core with 600 more mhz of speed game better (on average) than a quad core with 600 less Mhz?

 

nobody can say with only that much information, but there are only about 50 threads on the same topic and many of them on the very fist page of each forum section.

Quad is the better cpu to get period, if your laptop can support one, then get it.

Slowest quad is 2ghz and its enough to play any game (I tested myself)

 

On average, games are GPU limited, hence dual core and quad core CPUs will not noticeably be different.

 

Someone a few months back made a real life performance test on his T9600 versus his Q9000 on his HP HDX 16
The Q9000 despite its slower clock speed was faster in just about every test.

If the cpu upgrade is not too expensive, go with the quad core processor
Trust me, the additional two cores will open more doors in the future than a few more MHz clock speed

K-TRON

 

Quad Cores use more electricity - so battery life will be negatively affected.

True, unless you get old CPU based games

K-TRON - was that on new games?
I'd have though a single thread applicaton will not benefit from more cores, and only multi-threaded applications will really result in a benefit from a quad core (or more cores) CPU. ?

 

evne old cpu based games (while they shouldn't be limited by both systems) may gain from the quad.

all other processes BESIDES the game can offload to the other cores. gpu drivers do, all the os processes and services do, etc.

so you may, in specific cases, get a tiny advantage of a dual core. but no, in general, never, no.

 

I was reading an articale the otherday (I think it was in Custom PC) where someone from nVidia was accusing Intel of lying about the extra performance gained by a better/faster dual or quad core CPU in a gaming environment.

Intel claims that thier latest i7 series CPU are better and faster at games compared to any Core 2 Duo CPU (either dual core or quad core). The guy for nVidia explained that Intel claims are based on the use of benchmarks. When he tested himself these claims with proper games (such as crysis) he found the following:

1- Game performance (i.e. number of frames per second) was almost the same between a fast Core 2 Duo (dual or quad core) and an i7 CPU.
2- There is only one or two games that realy take advantage of all 4 cores. For most a dual core CPU is more than enough.
3- Using a fater GPU makes all the difference and helps to increase the number of frames/second considerably.

So if you are into games spend more into the GPU.
If you're into rendering, video editing get a quad core.

 

There is a variable amount of performance gained depending on the game, most games do not even use Dual Core processors at the 100% of their capacity, so, a Quad Core processor won't gain you any significant gains on many games.

Although, more and more games have begun to go multi-threaded, and it might become a tendency, but having the extra multi-tasking power of a Quad Core helps, especially if you like to have multiple programs open and a game open at the same time, like I do.

Stick to a Dual Core for now, unless you, like some people before me have said, do Video Editing or use 3D Modelling programs that are multi-threaded and support Quad Core processors.