<quote>There really is no need for anything more than dual core not now not even 3 years from now. I say this because you would need to be running something totally outrageous to use more than 2 cores. No home user no gamer no one outside of a company doing large scale production needs anything more than dual core.</quote>

If you think this you are naive. Not even 10 years ago 32MB of RAM was "all you would ever need". The speed at which the computer industry evolves is mind boggling if you think about it. To say "such and such" is all you will ever need is silliness. Computers are still in their infancy, and as such still have a long way to go. That being said, I believe it would not be unfeasible for a Gamer to need 4 cores within the 5 year mark. Who knows, by then they will probably have something with 8 cores.

Do you need 4 now? Absolutely not. In 3 years? Most likely, yes. 5? Definitely.

<quote>Thats nice, but I have a question...

Will the coolers be quiet AND be able to cool off the proc properly, or will we have to shell out for a copper cooling kit if we want to hear your speakers?

I think this is important, mostly because if you buy a processor these days you have the option to go OEM on the proc and get a decent cooler seperate, saving upto 20% on the proc (and blowing it on the cooler )</quote>

liquid cooling silent and effective.

There really is no need for anything more than dual core not now not even 3 years from now. I say this because you would need to be running something totally outrageous to use more than 2 cores. No home user no gamer no one outside of a company doing large scale production needs anything more than dual core. If you have an AMD dual core processor the 6000+ line and 4gb of dual channel ram you have everything you will ever need as far as processing power goes. Your video cards are another story but as far as the core of your system that is the best setup.

I might even go as far as saying that the largest single core processors out are probably even better for an average home user because certain things just aren't compatible with dual core but most things are.

Heat Pipe/Water Cooling FTW ... at least until we get to the point where we can trick Mother Thermodynamics.

So far there is only one problem with Quad Core CPU's that realy needs to be addressed. Windows. XP and even Vista only allow a maximum of 2
processors in a system . I know that there are a few workarounds that allow Vista home to work with dual core processors but will Microsoft ever fix the number bug??

Well, in theory four cores is pretty close to the sweet spot for multi-threaded apps. Maybe by the time Intel has a real quad-core processor, the games will be able to take advantage of it?

Thats nice, but I have a question...

Will the coolers be quiet AND be able to cool off the proc properly, or will we have to shell out for a copper cooling kit if we want to hear your speakers?

I think this is important, mostly because if you buy a processor these days you have the option to go OEM on the proc and get a decent cooler seperate, saving upto 20% on the proc (and blowing it on the cooler )