I am looking ot purchase a new CPU and wanted some input on the three different processors available with the system. I have the option of going with a Pentium

Hi Scott,I am looking at purchasing the same system (XPS 400), except I believe I will go with the 24" widescreen monitor and upgrade my sound card. From what I understand there is currently no software available today that can take full advantage of dual core processing. Maybe in 2 or 3 years. I think the hardware folks are way ahead of the software folks so we may be wasting our money buying something we may not even be able to use effectively for several years. I am not sure if Microsoft has any plans to use dual core in the next FS. I plan on sticking with the 3.2 GHz HT processor and putting the money saved towards the big monitor. If there is someone out there who can make a good case for the dual core, I would like to hear about it.I am still holding off purchasing hoping that Dell will have some sort of pre-Christmas markdown or special. Keeping my fingers crossed!!!Good luck on your purchase!Airbus

I agree with Airbus. There is no indication which way MS will go down the road. The key to your question is you said "My goal is to have the best machine possible for FS9". You didn't say FS10 (or 11 or 12), so with that I too just upgraded my system for FS9. I know what it needs so I purchased accordingly. I bought the fastest CPU for my board an Intel P4 3.4, an ATI X800 XT AIO and 2GB of DDR 500 RAM (2x1gb). The upgrade was worth it. FS2004 screams. 30-40's on the ground 50-70's in the air on average. No stutters, all sliders maxed, real 3 layer weather, 100% UT AI. What happens in FS10? WHO knows... who cares, I am totally happy with my upgrade and I am sur eit will hold it's own when FS10 rolls around.

Clutch Cargo,Which MOTHERBOARD you using?

Clutch, what addon aircraft with those numbers?Noel

>Hi Scott,>From what I understand there is currently no>software available today that can take full advantage of dual>core processing. Maybe in 2 or 3 years. I think the hardware>folks are way ahead of the software folks so we may be wasting>our money buying something we may not even be able to use>effectively for several years.Ehh... You are aware that dual core is just a putting two processors on one chip, and we have had dual (and more) system for many many years, right? Even my mother runs a dual CPU system (my old 2 x PII 266mhz).So there is plenty of software using dual processors (video and photo editing springs to mind for consumer stuff, while databases etc are obviously able to take advantage of dual CPU systems).It is correct that FS9 is not taking advantage of it. You will however be able to run the addons running in seperate processes (for example weather addons-AI seperation) without any performance impact on FS. If you run many of these it might be worth to go for dual core already now. Obviously a dual core CPU system will also be able to handle whatver the OS needs to run the file system, virus scanning etc withut any impact on FS.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/chips/0,3...39237341,00.htm