however, to continue to use the painting example, even if you have 4 painters to split up the work, if only 2 are painting and the other 2 are sitting there doing nothing, you would be better off with 2 faster painters. (example of lack of software at the moment to take advantage of 4 cores). if you have an extra $75 or so to "future proof" in hopes of software taking advantage of 4 cores in the near future than get the quad, otherwise, choose the E8400 dual core. i'm leaning towards getting a motherboard that supports the quad, but getting the E8400 so it's faster right now.