CPU Advise needed

[huxley]

Ok this is the deal I dont know a great deal about pcs.
I bit the bullet about a year ago and decided to build my self from scratch a media center pc for my home. It current spec is asingle core 64 1.8 amd 939 socket cpu, geforce 6600gt gfx card and 2 gigs of ram.
Looking forward to blueray/hddvd play back I know I`m going to have to upgrade the gfx card to at least a 7900 or 8800, I`ve been told the ram should be ok. The cpu is the bit thats stumping me. Do I go for a 2.2ghz single core or a 2.0ghz duel core? Am I right in thinking duel core can handle more things going on at the same time as I`m running xp media center roll up two and at present the extender meter goes into the red when I connect to the pc via my 360
Cheers in advance.

[EvilBoris]

I think with the whole duel core thing you have to have software that takes advantage of it, from what I gather XP doesn't make much use of Duel core CPUs.
I think Vista does, so unless you are going to upgrade to vista, there probably isn't a huge improvement if you go for a duel core.

[andrewfee]

I think with the whole duel core thing you have to have software that takes advantage of it, from what I gather XP doesn't make much use of Duel core CPUs.
I think Vista does, so unless you are going to upgrade to vista, there probably isn't a huge improvement if you go for a duel core.

With a media centre system, go for Dual Core. I don't know if you're switching to Intel or sticking with AMD, but the Core2 architecture is very quick, even if only one of the cores is being used.

[SuperBeatBoy]

ive got a dual core intel chip. at 2.1 ghz, its incredibly alot faster than my athlon 64 3600+. i noticed a vast improvement with it on my 64bit version of vista ultimate.

what is the meaning behind dual core anyway, is it like having 2 cpus or something?

[huxley]

ive got a dual core intel chip. at 2.1 ghz, its incredibly alot faster than my athlon 64 3600+. i noticed a vast improvement with it on my 64bit version of vista ultimate.

what is the meaning behind dual core anyway, is it like having 2 cpus or something?

Cheers mate looks like the duel 2.2ghz for me, prices seem to be all over the place at the moment.

From looking into it duel cores allow more apps to run on a shared load it seems.