Why still sceptical?.. IF your new machine is going to run FSX go for it Dual core does make a difference,sure there are some other factors speeding things up, but also allready mentioned tons of times fs speeds up the most with raw CPU power.

There are so many options. Do I go with amd or intel. At first I was all for amd, but now intel is looking pretty good. And what is wrong with the dual core pentium d's, they have even faster clock speeds than the intel duo.

Also what do you think about the amd 3800+ instead of the 4400+, my friend recomended it.

Replying to both your questions here,Difference between Pentium D and Conroe. Conroe's have a larger L2 and use less power. The majority of Intel's Core 2 Duo line feature a single shared 4MB L2 cache,with the exeption of the E6300 and E6400 they are only equipped with a 2MB cache. I Strongly suggest in reading this article conroe vs Pent. D http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2795&p=2As for the other question about the x2 3800. Great chip capable of running at a nice overclock at 260x10 to 270x10 which will give you perfomance close to that of an x2 5000 (excl. DDR2 support) but a a way lower price

And with this mobo will I be able to overclock it? http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/software/dcc/index.htm And do you think it will be stable if I overclock it to 2.4? Because I want at least a 2.4 ghz processor. I want a completly smooth flight sim in the lds 767 vc and I hope a 2.4 amd will be enough to get that.

That link you are refering to doesnt lead to any specifc board, but when going with the AMD, dont get an Intel, get like an Asus, DFI or something similar, get the X2 3800 and overclock it. It will run at 2.6GHz (260x10) to 2.7GHz (270x10) with a nice Zalman cooler and well ventilated case. It will give you smooth sailing in the LDS. and overal in sim performance.

Thanks for your response, youve been a great help thus far.

No problem, :-beerchug

The one thing now that ahs me stumped is the mobo. I need an agp x8 slot for my video card. So this really narrows it down. I was looking into this board and people say it has sound popping issues with creative cards. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16813131541I have a creative sb audigy card.

No worries, a good board which i think will suit you well. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16813157081Both AGP and PCIe, so when you get tired of your AGP you only have to buy a new card and leave the mobo where it is. Will suit that x2 3800 and does a good job running it at 2.7Ghz. And no issues with SB. (i've had this board with a 3800) no issues ;)NOTE: "Regarding that last entry in that review about the "sucky" overclock, ignore it the x2 runs fine at stock volt, so your fine"

I am planning to buy the AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+, the mobo you sent says its for the 64, not 64x2.

It supports the X2's aswell,trust me on that because i had that board with the x2 3800. IMHO its a waste of money if you buy the X2 4200. I've had that X2 3800 running without problems well beyond the 42,44 and 4800, plus its not only me, its well known about the X2 3800 that it will do that. Thats why more people buy that instead of the 4200

Ok, thanks for your help.

One last thing, what would be better for performance, an am2 socket with ddr2 ram, or a socket 939. And are the performance differences noticable?

For now perfomance is more or less equal. DDR2 runs at a lower voltage, thus producing less heat and massive increases in memory bandwidth and the significant latency reduction of DDR2 still doesnt have much impact on real-world gaming performance. AM2 socket is the "new" one and is faster than 939 which is the "on the way out socket", although realworld performance is barely noticable, the gain from 939 to AM2 only lies around 5% to 7% depending on the application running