Q6600 vs e8500? experts only please.?

Question

i know this question is all over the internet. q6600 for multitasking and e8500 for gaming. im building a gaming computer so the e8500 is my best choice for now.

a lot of people say that games will start using 4 cores soon and future proofing is important to me as i dont plan on upgrading. when games actually use 4 cores efficiently, will my e8500 still do as good or even better than a q6600.

so basically what im asking is, just because future games (1-2 yrs) will use 4 cores, does that mean an overclocked q6600 (3-3.2) will be better than an overclocked e8500.(4-4.2) or will the e8500 still dominate.

my day of using my computer would go like this:

play a game like team fortress 2 at highest resolution in window mode, 4 internet browsing windows open, and transfering music to my mp3 player and going back and forth between those things. is that considered multitasking?

Answer 1

Either go with the 8500 for now or get a Q9XXX series. Dont bother with the old Q6600's. Most applications only utilize dual cores. You pretty much have to overclock your quad core to get stock results of a dual core while playing games.

Answer 2

dual core will serve you well,i have more stuff opened up while im playing TF2 or CSS and it runs fine.  

We truly do not know when games will be using 4 cores, but in my opinion, a dual core is fine.  Plus you can always upgrade.

Answer 3

yes it is considered multitasking i would just get the quad core and OC it.

Answer 4

45nm dual core vs.65nm quad core...hmmm... i would vote for q6600 but it runs hotter but of course, 4 heads are better than 1. dual cores tend to overclock better than quads because it runs cooler. i came from e6750 and is now using q6600 and its a worthy upgrade. go for q6600.

Answer 5

it's up to you in the end, i've heard both sides of the argument. in the future games will utilize 4 cores but an e8500 will do you fine for a long while.

in my opinion, that's not enough to be considered multitasking...

i'd go with the e8500 in your situation.