Hi there,

I have been reading several articles on the net about dual and quad core. Due to the quad cores being more future proof i'm thinking of changing my mind on the dual core. I'm in the middle of a build and still unsure. Will the system below play most new games at high or very high settings?

Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600 Quad Core Processor(2.4GHz,8MB Cache,1066MHz)
SLI nForce 750I SLI Asus P5N-D Motherboard
2GC DDR2 800mhz RAM
nVidia GeForce 9800GTX
Vista Home Premium
500GB SATA HDD 16MB Buffer

Also I would like to know how long it will be before games start using the quad cores? And whether the latest games will still use dual core, or will this die out very soon as my other option for a processor is the E8400 (3.0Gz, Dual Core).

Thanks
Cornzey

I don't know about compatibility but I have the same processor the quad seems to be working well with gaming for me.

It won't make much of a difference in game if you choose a dual or a quad, assuming they are both around the same clock speed. Modern games are much more GPU, rather than CPU, dependent. I have a Q6600 @ 3.1 and a 9800GTX @ stock, and I can max every game I've played besides Crysis. I played it at 1440x900, max settings minus AA with ~30fps all around.

Modern games use GPU power more than the CPU power. So for gaming, you have a nice PC. In future you may want to upgrade GPU or maybe RAM. You are using DDR2, you should go for DDR3 for the RAM standard.

Why DDR3 its too expensive what's so wrong with DDR2?

I doubt you would notice the speed difference between DDR2 and DDR3. Don't forget, DDR3 has higher latencies.

That often depends on the game itself. I have a game, X3: Reunion, that looks amazing and uses the CPU far more than the GPU. If you're going quad, why don't you go for one of the newer 45nm models? Some newer games make use of all available cores, many do not.