I'm on the cusp of purchasing parts for a new computer.  My mouse is hovering on the "Checkout" button on newegg.com.  As I'm going over the parts of my computer I'm agonizing over the choices I've made.  Most of the parts are inspired from lists that were put out by Scott Hanselman and his ultimate developer rig post as well as Jeff Atwood and his "Now It's Your Turn" post.

The question right now is Quad Core vs. Dual Core.  It's been questioned how much is really gained by going from two to four cores.  Graphs and benchmarks show that there isn't much to be gained right now with going to a Quad core.  Sure there isn't a difference now, but what about the future.  Multi-core systems are the norm now, but a few years ago that wasn't the case.  As programs start building for multi-core desktops I would imagine that more cores would be better.  So I'm curious, though a quad core machine today offers a neglible benefit, what about the future, two or even four years from now?

What do you think?

Tim