Quad core VS Six Core

[JRR]

Hi again, i am currently finalising a system build, another question i have found two processors within my budget one is a Quad Core the other a Six Core:

Quad Core: AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition, 3.70GHz/8MB Cache/AM3.
Six Core: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition, 3.30GHz/9MB Cache/AM3.

Which one of these processors would be better for gaming and multi program running?
Thanks.

[snuggans]

whether games utilize x amount of cores depends on its programming, and whether developers bother depends on the popularity of the processors. a noticeably large wave of games has only recently started taking advantage of four cores. i'm very unfamiliar with how they would handle more than 4 cores. the X4 has a stronger clock for each core, but you can argue that the X6 has more future-proofing. how often do you upgrade the processor?

[JRR]

I don't often upgrade it, i am getting a whole new system that i hope to run Empire/Napoleon e.c.t on the highest graphics possible, but i wasn't sure which would be better as they are both around the same price.

EDIT: if these specs make any difference :
GPU: HD Radeon 6950 2GB
RAM: Samsung 8GB (2x4GB) 1333MHz
PSU: 600w
MOBO: Asus M5A87

[(s)AINT]

I'm doing pretty god on dual core. lol.

Maybe in a few more years I'll go quad.

[snuggans]

since you specifically mentioned empire and napoleon, i would just go with the stronger clocked quad core now. relatively recent games like Bad Company 2 are actually optimized for quad cores, so you'll be able to churn some frames for it just by having a quad core, while older games will make use of the stronger clock even though they are not coded to take advantage of multiple cores (Windows vista/7 will still automatically distribute work throughout all cores, although you'll probably end up with several cores having around 10% or 25% usage, it doesn't necessarily mean the game is multithreaded)

[Crazyeyesreaper]

in all honesty if your building a brand new rig get an Intel sandybridge even the lowly i3 2100 is better for gaming then an AMD x4 980 or 1100T

for the price of a 1100T you can spent a few $$ more get a 2500k and in many games see a huge improvement,

i know in Bad Company 2 its a near 30fps increase in favor of the Intel SB chips, in Dragon Age its around 40fps with the same gpus.

and even when overclocked i should know i run AMD right now, the Phenom II chip dosent see a whole lot of performance increase the IMC or internal memory controller offers half the bandwidth of any current Intel chip and that system memory bandwidth makes a big difference in alot of games. that and even at 3.8ghz the Phenom II chips will have a hard time competing in games to cheaper Intel alternatives.. and sadly bulldozer was delayed so that dosent help either .

[Darkpriest667]

Games like APB and BFBC2 which all actually use multiple threads Ive noticed quite a significant increase in performance versus dual cores. There are lots of other programs that arent games that I use that I find the performance increase worth it to me. Some that wont recognize logical cores but do recognize actual cores.


Personally it was a good choice for me to upgrade from a phenom I x4 2.5ghz to a phenom II x 6 3.2 ghz. No overclocking has ever been necessary and all my games run very well at 1920 x 1080 on my 37 inch monitor.


I have thought about upgrading from my HTPC graphics card (gt430) to something more powerful possibly a AMD 6950 I'm still concerned about the quality of catalyst drivers. Perhaps in september when bulldozer comes out I'll build a new rig with an 8 core and pop in one or two 6950s but for now the system I have screams on anything Ive ran.