Best example is take two systems. One with a 2500 and one with a 2600. Have both encode a video file. Performance for the most part will be pretty similiar. Add a single task, or operation that windows needs to do. The 2500 will lag up, screens will become unresponsive. The 2600 can still have 3 other "cores" to manage normal tasks such as using the gui.
So while 4 years ago almost no game was truly multi-threaded and could utilize more then 1 core. Now starting this year we have at-least one game in terms of BF3 that can utilize up to at least 4 cores in MP (the part everyone plays). A single background task on a 2500 will cause the machine to skip a beat and cause frame rates to dip. On the 2600 that same task will have 4 other "cores" to squeeze itself into and no one will notice.
Not to say that every game will be like this. But do you really expect this development to stop? Do you think that the rest of them will stop at 2 cores? No what will happen is most games will be developed for a 4 core setup, because of the i5's, i7's, PII X4, PII x6, BD chips sold in the last few years and from this point on. That means that even if they don't take full use of 6+ cores. They most certainly will use 4 on more regular basis.
Now I can't guess the transition or how big of an effect it will have on any given persons niche's of choice. But yeah. In 3-4-5 years the 2500 will be more and more interrupt-able then the 2600. That will have a measured affect on performance. So unless this will be a system that will never have more then games on it, and will never be given any other task then games. I think a 2500 is a bit shortsighted for a machine expecting to last 4-5 years.
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