Considering dv2000; Dual core or single core for WoW?

Hi, guys.

I really liked the dv1000t series and I'm now looking at getting a new laptop. Since the dv2000 seems like the successor to the dv1000t, that's what I'm focusing on.

My main priority would be to play World of Warcraft on it. In addition to that I'd have a web browser, chat program, and Ventrilo. Only occasionally would I pop open MS Office to get some schoolwork done.

I'm trying to figure out whether to go with dual core or single core. Firstly, if I choose to go with AMD's Turion chipset, I have no choice but to go with dual core.

If I go with Intel I can choose either dual core or single core.

World of Warcraft is currently not optimized for dual core processors, so it would gain no advantage. This is the main reason that I'm leaning towards a single core configuration.

What confuses me is that I've been reading that a lot of single core processors these days began life as dual core but had one core fail the testing stage so AMD/Intel simply shut down bad core and sell the processor as a single core model. If this is true, would I truly be seeing a difference in a game such as WoW on a single core, since it's basically a neutered dual core?

So, if I want to play WoW, and pretty much only WoW, should I go dual core or single core? Will it even make a difference?

I realize my outright priority on WoW makes this an odd request for advice, and I also realize that there are other 14" laptops with much better discrete video cards available. Despite all of that I like the dv2000 series and am only considering it (I'd be fine with even the dv1000t series but they only come with Intel graphics) so I decided not to post this as a standard "What should I buy" message.

Anyway, I thank you all for any help you can give me.

 

Well as soon as gaming enters the equation, you can bar all the Intel GMA 900/950 laptops off your list, because you will hate yourself if you buy one due to the horrible performance (and I mean horrible), and you cant upgrade.

Now about the dual core issue. The thing with dual cores is that 2 processors sounds great, but one application can only be processed by one processor. So really if you only have one application running at a time, go for a single core to save money. However in practice, most people usually have multiple applications running at once, and WoW will get a slight benifit on a dual core, since one of the cores handles WoW, while the other one keeps windows running as a background application. A single core would have to sacrifice some of its WoW processing for windows once in a while, even though the change would be minimal.

So in conclusion I suggest you get yourself a dual-core, because any gaming will benefit, and whenever you happen to open iTunes and a spreadsheet, you'll notice it goes faster than a single core.