Yep, you heard me right, hello Sex-Core They're going to be unveiled next week at GDC and I am PUMPED! SOURCE
Unfortunately it will not help the majority of gamers out there. For a long time to come the best bang for your gaming buck will be upgrading your Vid card(s) and RAM.
RAM you just need a sensible basis to work with. Shouldn't ever need more than 4 GB for most applications right now, but if you're working with uncompressed video you still need all you can get. I upgraded my machine recently and it's actually running slower than it was before, purely because I haven't changed the graphics card yet. Windows 7 from XP and a 3520x1200 display area from 1280x1024 completely negated the benefits of a faster CPU and four times as much RAM.
exactlly why i went 1156 with the i7 860 who has 1k to spend on a CPU that wont do what i can do with my 860 and a good card ... plus in 3 or 4 years ill just upgrade mobo and everything anyways for usb 4.0 and sata 4.0 hahahaha
Cool and all, but... I think I'll be buying the i5-750 I think? Or waiting until the higher end i7's drop a little more.
I can't wait any longer, my 2 year old box is just getting older. My little core2duo 3.0ghz and 8800gt 512 make me feel newbish. I'd like to play some of these newer games a bit better!
Overclock the CPU and upgrade your card. No reason to replace your CPU til you blow up the old one imo
Here's a great review of the new Gulftown processor: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/features/intel_rolls_six
Don't think Intel has ever made 4 GHz chip yet - even going back to the Pentium 4 EE days, the highest I remember them making was a 3.86 GHz chip.