dx11 means nothing in terms of quad/dual core and multithreaded gaming. Its simple its very hard to split gaming into separate threads. its fairly easy to split the physics, the ai and the graphics drivers, the audio and a few other bits into separate threads, but its very very very hard to further subdivide the power draws into further threads. Physics as a separate thread, yes, physics as 2 threads of itself is a completely different matter entirely. Now the problem is theres only so far you can go sticking entire sections on separate cores as the power draws, AI, physics and the 1/2 others might need more than is available on one core, as it can't separate out a new thread for a new core, new cores are useless.
GTA doesn't need quad cores, it doesn't need 1gb memory for textures either, the fact that neither console has 1gb of memory should hint at that. Theres some major failures with their port, some major things missing and some major design flaws. The power it needs yet it looks fairly poor, lots of poor quality textures, lots of popping in and out, lots of crappy shadows. Its just a really poor port and using it as an argument as to why we need quads isn't valid, in any way at all. Neither should you buy hardware for a single game unless you play it all the time. I can understand if WOW was a computer killer and needed a 4.5Ghz quad core and you did play it for 3 hours a day, buying a comp for it makes a little sense, likewise if you use photoshop with massive pictures every day 8gigs mem would be worthwhile. If you'll play gta, probably once, then forget about it for 4 years then buying a quad just for it is rather silly.
There will be few games and far between that need quad cores, Supcom isn't the start of things to come, its simply different to 99% of games out there, its a huge database with a fairly simply 3d interface, most games simply aren't like that at all, RTS's, and only a very small percentage of RTS's are cpu intensive, always have been and always will be. Supcom wanting a quad(or more) has no meaning, it doesn't indicate all games will need similar power eventually, most games aren't massive databases constantly crunching numbers.
It will probably be a long, maybe a very long time before you really see games using multithreading in the true sense, IE physics part of the engine being able to generate new threads itself and spread its load. IT was fairly easy to separate the physics from the ai and the sound/gfx, there was no reason they ever had to be in the same thread, but being there was only one core it was simply easier to generate one thread in one .exe , it was never necessary. So they've split that up, it was a piece of cake, the next step for true multithreading is going to take ages and few games will do it. Things like Supcom, because each unit can be taken individually fairly easily will be the first and maybe only types of games to do so easily.
A lot of the leading people in the industry are saying those that can really program WELL in true multithreading are very very rare and need to be truly exceptional. The average programmer isn't capable according to the most respected people in the industry.
Matching an E8400 & E8500 (@3.6ghz)!
I personally don't see the point in dual processors now apart from laptops where lower power is such a factor.
