Intel Core 2Duo vs Intel Core 2 Quad

Need to get off of my lap top for SL, am having overheating problems, It is an Intel, the lap top. The Core 2 Duo E6750, X3000 Integrated Video vs the Corer 2 Quad E66600,NVIDIA FX8800GTS Video (PXC). The 2 Quad is a bit more:0 Any opinions ? Thank you for you time.

The Core 2 Quad is a better and faster processor and the graphics is much much better. The quad would be my choice.

Generally you want to stick with a dual core chip for current software. Same cores, but they run at higher clock speeds for the same price, which leads to higher performance on single threaded apps, and on apps not designed to utilize more than two processor cores. Computer games tend to perform better on a faster dual, than on a slightly slower quad. I say "tend to" because there are a few that like quads, but there aren't many.

Quad core machines are, however, significantly better if you are doing things like 3D rendering (different from games such as SL), or video production (or just lots of encoding).

If you are buying a computer with SL primarily in mind, just go with a quad. It won't be faster than a dual, but the extra cores are nice if you need them. SL is kinda sorta multi-threaded. it doesn't really see any noticable gains when going from 1 to 2 cores, or from 2 to three cores, or even four cores.

If, however, getting a quad core processor would eat into your video card budget, then go for a cheaper processor. SL eats into a video card much more than it eats into a processor, and a nice video card will net you vastly better graphics and frame rates than a nice processor.