Is dualcore or quadcore work faster

[benchmarkjoe]

To faster to encode bluray video to MKV with HandBrake. I plan to buy either Dell xps 8100 i5-650 dual core 3.2GHz or i7-860 2.6GHz quadcore. But I also don't want to buy the same dual core when I have Inspiron 530 2.2HGz also.
Can anyone give me suggesion which one should I chose i5-560 3.2GHz dual core or i7-860 2.6GHz quad core to work better with handbrake (I mean it will doing faster)?
Thanks

[TedJ]

Definitely the i7-860 quad. The extra two cores will easily surpass the performance of the i5-650 even with the latter's 600 MHz speed boost.

Moving to Tiki Bar, as the Ponies forums are for feature requests only.

[wysinawyg]

Does it depend on what encodes you're doing? I thought I had read somewhere that some filters stopped Handbrake from properly utilising multi-core setups.

[JohnAStebbins]

Some filters less efficiently use multiple cores. But a quad will still beat the dual.

[benchmarkjoe]

Thanks you all for the input.