Both CPU's will work just fine with games, and as long as you have a good late model system and it's tweaked it has plenty of potential to play the top titles.
There are some games out there that DO favor one, and even some that will *only* run on a speciffic CPU. They may be in it to make money, but some of these titles specialize to a niche market, and they are optimized for certain CPU's.
Not everybody has a dual core, yet the games or simulations are going forward with optimizing toward dual core. Some will still work on single cores, while others slow to a crawl. One case in point is LOMAC. It will run ona single core system, but it doesn't run worth a damn, and even with a dual core it's not much better, but it is optimized (if you can call it that) towards dual core, and if you play online, you would last long enough to get your a$$ shot off against a dual core 830...yes, that includes AMD.
In Falcon 4: Allied Force, the same thing is happening. They are moving toward the new Intel Dual Cores. The pople they sell to are mainly obscessed (like I am) with these simulators. They are not games. They are dynamic campaign engined, photrealistic, 3D cockpit, 6DOF, war simulations. It takes specialized HOTAS sticks, throttles, and IR Head tracking devices to fly them with any success. The people who fly them won't think twice about buying a system tailored for them. I already happen to have one because HT works fine right now with it. If you own a Dual Core Intel, or a HT CPU you will get max frame rates, and 90% of the users use Intel machines.
There is no advantage to shorter pipes. In fact, it is a hindrance. it is why Intel is now taking over the performace titles once again. It was a good idea while it lasted, but you can't have high clocks with short pipes. Intel is now in the position where they can shorten those pipes some (not too much like AMD did) and still retain their clocks. The performance gains of the higher clocks wilol show themselves definitively when Conroe comes out.
Onboard memory controllers are not what they are cracked up to be either. A celeron with no onboard controller whatsoever, can beat a clocked fx53 with a memory controller in Super Pi...a benchmark that relies heavily on memory. Those mem controllers are not the holy grail AMD would have people believe. In fact, Intel has deemed them as "not needed" and now considers any move in that direction a waste of time. They don't need "on die" to get the bandwidth...they already have it. They got it, by refining their chipsets, which is something AMD obviously cannot do, because they don't make a chipset.
They *should* make a complete package, but of course they *should* be doing alot of things they are not doing. Could've, should've, would've, don't mean a thing. It takes actual action and R&D to get somewhere. AMD is too busy wasting money in the courts trying to get stuff handed to them to do any real research with the exception of what their lawyers are feeding them, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Right now, they are on a suicide mission, and are hell bent on completing it. It looks like they are succeeding in that department.
Anybody wanna guess what's gonna happen 1Q 06 after Pressler/Cedar Mill has ben on the market a full quarter?
Hey CoreGamer, There's no flames here. I haven't even got out my fire suit. There's not even a spark and we sure haven't seen any gas yet either. I probably will get out the fire suit when Pressler and the Cedar Mills start showing up in benches here though. You never know though, with all the crying, the tears may put the fires out! hahaha