Hi all.I just read a review on a Dell dual core CPU gaming system. Here's the link:http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1784533,00.aspHas anyone benchmarked this beast to see if it runs FS any better than an FX55? I'm looking to build a new machine but I'm not really sure what to get. SATA? 10000 RPM HD? DDR2? 1gb? GeForce 256mb? SB Live Audigy?Thanks,Enrique==========================Frequency change approved,Good day.

I doubt anyone really knows how well FS9 works on this machine. The XPS Gen 5 isn't yet released to the public, only preview machines have been sent to a few reviewers (CNET, Toms Hardware etc...). Rumor has it that it will be available in May for too much money.From what I understand, and I may be way off here, reading THG's preview of Dual Cores, it won't benefit FS9 much, if at all. Unless a software is written to take advantage of multi-thread, the Dual Core will perform the same, give or take, as a similarly clocked P4 (5xx or 6xx series).Ofcourse, it might be a good idea getting a dual core setup in case FS10 takes advantage of that. Having said that, I would wait to see what AMD will show off in the last week of April for their Dual Core. I have a feeling it might trump Intel's offering.;-)

If you want to see how FS9 would run on a dual-core CPU, buy a dual-CPU motherboard and two P4's :)

Hi!I don't know anything about that particular system, but I have been running FS on a dual AMD Opteron system and the considerations should be the same for a dual CPU system and dual core system.A dual CPU system makes a huge difference to general, overall system throughput, because although relatively few programmes are multi-threaded to take advantage of multiple CPU's directly, the operating system is, and most applications spend quite a lot of time making operating system calls. Also, although the benefit to any one program might be limited, there are normally many processes running at the same time on a machine and multiple CPU's allow more than one of these to run simultaneously. In general, both CPU's share the load fairly evenly on my system.Flight Simulator is an exception. It places a heavy load on the CPU and most of its operating system calls are in the video system, which is not well threaded in Windows. Thus Flight Simulator tends to peg one CPU at close to 100% and the other does hardly anything.Most add-on programmes, like ActiveCamera or FSNavigator, run within Flight Simulator's process, so they don't benefit from an additional CPU either. In theory, something like ActiveSky, which is a separate executable should be able to take advantage of an additional CPU, but it appears that most of its heavy work is done within the context of Flight Simulator, because it places a neglible load on the extra CPU.In summary, the current version of Flight Simulator does not benefit significantly from more than one CPU. I hope the next version does.regards,Alan.