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Both of my parents, and my brother are running Athlon 64 X2 3800+'s that I picked up on the cheap. Compared to my quad-core in light applications and general web-browsing they feel pretty much just as zippy. Obviously the quad-core feels a little bit more so, but its very marginal and probably would not be noticeable unless you used my computer for a while.

I feel the real break is the dual-core processor. Honestly, even most Pentium D's are fine for the typical user....though their power consumption and heat probably aren't.

My girlfriend's E4500 still seems fine for most applications. I really think my Q8400 is overkill 95% of the time. With enough video card to run most games, I think most people could get away with nothing more than a good dual core processor.