How long will the Duo Core 2 will stick around?

Which CPU? A faster Core 2 Duo or slower Core 2 Quad?

• I am building a new system on a budget and am not sure whether I should get the intel Core2 Quad Q8200 processor (2.33Ghz) or the Core2 Duo E7400 which is 2.8Ghz but about $75 cheaper. I generally use my PC for a mixture of work, music and web browsing but that means I need to run Outlook, Word, Excel, iTunes, Skype, MSN, Firefox (often with many many tabs and usually a couple of youtube pages and streaming audio) all at the same time. Also I want to be able to burn a CD or DVD and continue working on other programs without it screwing up. As I am a multitasker, am I better suited to the Quad core, or will windows manage all those concurrent process better with the higher clock speed of the dual core processor? PS. if I go for the faster dual core i can use the extra $75 on an entry level graphics card to get me into gaming or a 1TB HD instead of a 500gig one which would be helpful. PPS. what operating system would you recommend? Do i need to get 64bit? Should i stick with XP over vista. Thanks for your input.

• Answer:

  seems like you're quite the multi-tasker.. the Q8200 would give you a much bigger performance increase. and you could probably overclock it to 3.0GHz on stock cooling. and i do recommend getting a 64-bit os. vista or windows 7 maybe. because even if you don't have 4gb+ of ram, the 64-bit os is coded to be more efficient.