More cores or a power-horse?

[Sarduk]

Hi all,

I am currently deliberating between whether or not I should opt for a 3.0 GHz dual-core or a Quad Core (2.4GHz) Q6600.

The price between both do not concern me much.

I do not do a lot of gaming, but I tend to run many things at the same time (many messengers, Adobe Photoshop, Outlook, maybe a VM once in a while, Firefox, Zune media player, Diskeeper, Logitech Setpoint, couple of misc. apps) and so on.

One of the most intensive things I do (aside from running a VM) is converting large documents into PDFs (10 - 15 minutes currently on my 3700+).

Responsiveness and fast loading of things is key for me, as well as reducing the time for tasks such as the PDF conversion.

Intuition tells me someone will tell me to go with the Q6600 and overclock it. If this is your suggestion; how hard is it to overclock? (I'd be running an Artic Freezer because I like the noise reduction).

Best,

 

[Sarduk]

Not sure if any multi core CPU will make much differance running them app's so i would say the fastest daul core would give more performance, unless you use other proper multi thread software you will have one core working,one core thinking about it and two core's providing moral support.

This contradicts what everyone else says - you may be mistaken; it is not a matter of how many of my applications multithread, but a matter of how many applications I am running at the same time (which are all those and a few more listed).