Picking a processor

I found these processors and I was wondering if someone could tell me which was better for high perfomance gaming and multi tasking.

Intel Core 2 Quad
2.4GHz clock speed
1066MHz FSB
8MB L2 Cache

or

Intel Core 2 Duo
3.0GHz clock speed
1333MHz FSB
6MB L2 Cache

The only reason I'm asking is because the Core 2 Duo has higher FSB speed and clock speed but is 10$ cheaper at Circuit city(which isn't necessarily where I'm buying it).Does 2MB of L2 cache size really make that much of a difference?

I'm going to use it with NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI MCP motherboard if that makes a difference.

 

Doug,

I had started this reply thinking what a problem you would have. But as far as the multitasking issue goes - I don't think so. You can get multitasking done with good RAM, preferably something with similar speed to your processor. A good systemboard/processor arrangement nowadays can support up to 16 GB of RAM with the right OS software. Nothing to sneeze at, as far as I'm concerned. If you're looking to run 32-Bit XP/Vista, then, yeah, but otherwise a 64-Bit OS should support the kind of RAM you'll need for multitasking/speed/gaming.

Chipper

 

L2 cache definately makes a difference. I would go with the Quad, myself.

 

I'll remember that point about the L2 cache. Thanks for the tip, Adrynalyne.

 

I'm still on the fence to go with Windows XP 64 bit or Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit. I would love to have Directx 10 but I want to be able to play my older games like Starcraft and Diablo 2.

Also, my sister bought a Vista Laptop a while back that came with a trial version of Microsoft Office and in order to install the full version she had to uninstall the trial version which Vista wouldn't let her do. After many, many hours on the phone with microsoft they finally found a work around which was to make a seperate user account.

I want to be able to access my files and delete/move/access as I please, but I would love the extra eye candy I hear Directx 10 gives. I have thought of having a dual-boot. Does that work with Vista and XP? If so, are there any disadvantages to having both?

 

I just realized that last post was probably in the wrong thread...sorry.

Anyways I was just looking at hard drives and noticed 7200 RPM seemed to be the standard. If I bought one with 10,000 RPM would that increase performance, or would it just be overkill? Also, Does the cache size on hard drives affect performance?