How many Cores are Neccesary to play games on high settings?

Here is a processor that my friend recommend me get for my gaming needs, I have
8gig Ram
GTX 570
Home Premium 64bit

and here is the processer (Quad Core)
Mike's Computer Shop - CORE I7 3.5G 8MB SR0 920492
And im just wondering if i should get that one or get an i7-3770k, Thanks

Unless my eyes deceive me, that is a 3770K and more than you need for gaming.

But if you can afford it and need major horsepower for non-gaming purposes, knock yourself out.

for gaming, most money goes for good GPU, most games aren't really horribly CPU-intensive, all i7 and most i5 are still overkill afaik.

bobafetthotmail said:

for gaming, most money goes for good GPU, most games aren't really horribly CPU-intensive, all i7 and most i5 are still overkill afaik.

Pretty much. My i7 is 3 or so years old.

bobafetthotmail said:

for gaming, most money goes for good GPU, most games aren't really horribly CPU-intensive, all i7 and most i5 are still overkill afaik.

+ 100

Also, don't forget that most games now a day are Console Ports, some of them even unoptimized so having the latest and the greatest does not transfer into High Settings = WIN :)

i7 is overkill... 7 cores too many for gaming :)
I5 3rd or 2nd gen is good enough IMO.

Thanks for your advice

Some games really do benefit from multicore processors, like Battlefield 3, especially in multiplayer. This is a great article on the subject of gaming CPU's... I think it's exactly what you're looking for: Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: August 2012