Intel said today that the "game is over" for software written for single processors, and promised to focus on the gaming community as an important first market for its dual-core chips.

The company will release a raft of tools for games developers to optimise software for dual-core processors and its hyper-threading technologies.

"The game is over for software that is written only for a single processor," said Robert Crooke, vice president of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group.

"Intel is providing the platform and tools to help out the game developers as they start the transition to a multi-core and multi-thread environment."

Intel has made it very clear that the speed race in processors is over and that dual and multi-core processors are the way forward. It will be bringing out two dual core PCs this year: a desktop Pentium D and a Pentium Extreme Edition for gamers.