I need to buy a new computer & am very surprised to see that an Athlon X2 3800 is about the same price as an Athlon 3700 - 4000 single core processor. As I don't really know how AMD calculate the "equivalent" ratings I would appreciate a little help with interpretation.In FS2004 will the X2 3800 or 4000 number be a real reflection of the relative speed or does the X2 3800 rating assume some benefit from the dual core that I know in the current version of FS I will not get?My experience of processors is that if the equivalent ratings are real with FS2004 I would not be able to see any difference between 3800 & 4000. As all processors will apparantly be dual core very soon it would seem to offer some future proofing to buy the dual core. I would only do this if I do not loose anything now. Chris

BumpI'm also intrested in an answer :-) Ulf B

Hi. The 3800+ "X2" runs at 2.0 GHz and each "core" has 512KB L2 cache. By comparison the 3800+ "single core" runs at 2.4 GHz and comes with 512KB L2 while the single-core 4000+ also runs at 2.4 GHz but comes with 1MB L2 cache.The name of the "single core" 2 GHz Athlon 64 with 512KB L2 is 3200+, meaning that in single-threaded applications, the X2 3800+ becomes a 3200+ since one core is idle.On the other hand, if FS2006 is multi-threaded, performance would be much better with the X2 3800.AMD's naming scheme is confusing :( I think I know where AMD pull their "performance ratings" from but I won't say it here :)

Thanks s