One of my single core systems ruinning XP has a special program that came with it when I bought it. The program causes the machine to act like it had a dual core. I am guessing the advantage is that with such a configuration the system won't get locked up on any one task.

However, there is a price to pay for that advantage. When I run a program such as Perl it runs at only half speed. One of the "software" processors just sits there essentially doing nothing unless some I/O work is required. Actually, I don't mind. I would rather not have the system running full steam and overheating.

My guess at the present time would be that most people would want to have a quad core system running 64 bit Windows 7 or 8 plus 8 gigiabytes of memory and at least DSL download speed. That way they can have multiple Web sites displayed at the same time and the computer won't get hung up if one of the sites starts running a video etc. and begins hogging processor time.

Dual core systems are usually adequate. But they can still easily run out of steam when multiple Internet Explorer windows are open at the same time.

Those 16 core processors are probably very useful for people who develop and play computer games that require a lot of fast graphics action. Each processor can be working on its own part of the picture such as overlays and background scene movement etc. And perhaps gaming is the main intended application for those multiple core systems. Lots of people reportedly play computer games and spend lots of money on them. If I heard correctly, some new game just started off with something like a billion dollars in sales. Roger is in the wrong business.