Posted 08/31/2008 at 06:00:15pm

This is in response to da_samman (SGT Samuel E. McClard II). I hope this helps, and I also want to thank you for the work you are doing. I have friends and family on multiple tours, and my thoughts are always with them (regardless of my stance on our presence there in the first place). Keep up the good work, stay safe, and much love.

With that, a comment about this statement (from: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/budget_badass_buyer%E2%80%99s_guide_updated_prices_and_parts_for_july_2008#comment-7500): "I am taking my next build very seriously, because I intend it to be as futureproof as possible for as long as possible with my gaming tastes (RPG, WoW, developing taste in FPS through Half-Life 2) and still have a nice upgrade path."

You present a difficult situation, because your current use is very different than what your "futureproof" will be. The games you list are, generally, "older" games--at least, games designed without any kind of multithreading.

However, the now clear future of all computer applications is in threaded development (programs designed to take advantage of more than one processor/core). I have been running dual processor systems since a dual overclocked Celeron 266->550MHz system (many years now). Multi processor/core systems have always suited my computing habits because of my use of multiple, processor intensive applications at once.

Unfortunately, games have never benefitted from my multi-processor/core setups. This is largely a result of two contributing factors:

1.  Until relatively recently, processors were developing in a manner that increased the rate at which they are able to process one instruction (e.g. increasing clock speed). This created a situation in which there was little need to program for multiple processor/cores, as they were uncommon; rather, programmers wrote to take advantage of increasing clock speed. However, increasing clock speed is no longer the direction any processor development is focusing on (be it CPU, GPU, or otherwise). Instead, increases in performance is coming from multiple cores and limited jumps in clock speed.

2. Writing programs that take proper advantage of multiple processor/cores is difficult, especially for programmers not well trained/verse in multithreaded (multi processor/core capable) programming. Unfortunately for those programmers, there is little headroom in clock speed in the foreseeable future; as a result, programmers will be forced to learn to properly thread their programs--including games.

What does this mean for us? As best as I can tell, it means simply that while a dual-core setup may seem like the best solution the price/performance of today, a quad-core setup will significantly outlast the dual core setup in the futureproof sense. Newer games will be forced to properly take advantage of multiple cores; this will result in significant jumps in performance in games/apps designed for this, greatly extending the life of your system.

I'm being told I need to leave, but I hope this helps! Simply put, if you're most interested in futureproofing your system, quad core is a very worthy investment, in my humble opinion.

Regards!