All this talk of C2D lately has finally spurned me to upgrade my two year old desktop system in my sig to the following:Intel Core 2 Duo E6400Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro CPU coolerGigabyte DS3 motherboard2 x 1G Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 matched memory stickseVGA 7900 GTO 512M PCI-E, dual DVI-out 2 x 250G SATA Maxtor 7200RPM, 16M cache hard drivesThe rest of the stuff will come over from my existing system, including my two beautiful new 22" LCD displays! My son, Cameron, will be standing in the winds, waiting for my offcuts to fall his way (especially the TV capability). :-lolIf I have been reading other internet hardware forum tea leaves correctly, then if my motherboard actually posts ;), I have about a 90% chance of hitting a 3.2GHz overclock on the CPU, nicely matched up with an 800MHz memory speed.The video card was a lucky find this morning (thanks techbargains!), coming in at US$230 after rebate for what many are saying is a full GTX in disguise.I'll set the two hard drives up as RAID 0, although I'm not expecting any significant performance boost over running them singularly.Should have all this stuff in about a week. :) :)Gary

Gary,Please post here ...the process for us to see. Particularly your Overclocking.:)Manny

I just realised that the hard drives I ordered are SATA, not SATA2, so I have emailed the site I purchased then from asking to switch to SATA2 units (a whole $2 more for each one). No big deal if they don't change them though - I'm much more interested in hard drive capacity than speed when it comes to FS.Oh, and I will report back once the overclocking games begin (approx 30 secs after the first successful system POST :-lol)!Gary

Gary,The speed of the read matters I think.. if you get Megascenery and other photo sceneries.Thats my understanding.Manny

mWave came through and changed my order to Western Digital SATA2 jobbies for a whole $2 extra apiece. All is now good :)Gary

Awesome!! I'm looking forward to hearing some good results!!

I have some good news, bad news and really good news.The good news is that my motherboard, RAM, CPU and hard drives all arrived today, despite me picking the cheapest shipping option. Way to go mWave! :-) The bad news is that I got such a good deal on my 7900 GTO (even got another $10 off for a price match), but the bastages at TigerDirect have the card on backorder until 6 Oct 06. Therefore, no PCI-X video card for me to use as yet. :( Then along comes this hairbrained idea I have to use my spare 4M Diamond Viper V330 PCI video card to get my system up and running. Whilst there will be no modern 3D graphics until my new card arrives, this old warhorse did get me up and running in Windows XP.Now the really good news is that, after getting a stable and updated version of Windows XP installed, I got to overclocking. I first tried the EasyTune 5 utility that was installed off the Gigabyte CD, but that only got me as far as 2.8GHz before my system rebooted by itself. :-grr Having read on the internet that these utilities do not adjust memory timing very well, I hopped into the BIOS and cranked it straight up to 400MHz bus, giving a 3.2GHZ clock speed. Worked like a charm and, to cut a long story short, I have edged my way up to 3.4GHz on stock cooling running dual prime95 instances and it is still running strong. :-jumpy I have my Artic cooler pro 7 for my CPU coming tomorrow, so I may be able to squeeze even a few more MHz out of my CPU, but I am absolutely stoked that my $215 CPU hit more than the 3.2GHz I was planning for. :-jumpy :-jumpyGary

Congratualtions on the new system Gary.I have a similar setup except at the moment my BIOS is limited to 333mhz FSB. It's ok though as it matches perfectly with my 667mhz DDR2 RAM. Apparently MSI are 'fixing' it in an update soon....You wont be dissapointed with FS9 performance. I was at EGLL (UK2000) with 90% AI, Building Storms theme and LDS767 VC and the frames never moved from my locked 24FPS. (4xAA, 8xAF)FSX (demo2) is another story. I haven't played around with it much yet, but it seems to be tough to hold 20FPS at St.Marrten with various slider settings. I think I will just remove it and wait for the retail to reallly tinker with the setup options.Glenn

I won't get to try out FS anything for a week or so, because I just don't think my 4M Diamond Viper V330 will cut the 3D graphics mustard somehow. :-lol BTW, I was getting a pretty high CPU temp of around 75C with my system overclocked to 3.4GHz. Turns out my BIOS automatically boosts CPU core and RAM voltages when overclocking, so my CPU was running at 1.45V (versus 1.3V stock) and RAM was 2.1V (versus 1.9V stock). Manually setting the CPU and RAM to stock values, I can't quite achieve 3.4GHz anymore, but it runs a full 10C cooler at max load now at 3.2GHz. My RAM is also happy to run at 1GHz at stock voltage, which is pretty good for DDR2-800 RAM. When I get my Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 and temperatures drop even more, I'll be happy to boost these voltages up again to achieve 3.4GHz or higher.Gary

75C ? Ouuuch.....good job you caught that!With the minimal oveclock I have right now and the artic freezer pro, the load temp never goes above 41CI disabled Speedstep and C1E for better OC stability but the idle temp went up a little to 38C from the 33C is was at with those options enabled.Glenn

Gary, Good going.Here is the deal. You have two option. 1. You can still get 3.4Ghz. All you may have to do is find a cooler for $38 or so. Its worth it IMO.2. That high temp happens only if you are cranking both the cores to that 100%. With FSX there is no chance of that. Woo hoo.. good news that FSX is basically single core! :)So crank it to 3.4. and run FSX...and watch that cpu Temp. It maybe ok.Option 1 and 2 combined is the best one. I think.MannyPS: I just noticed that your Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler is on the way.

Don't you worry Manny, if I can get 3.4GHz without causing a system meltdown, then 3.4GHz it shall be! My Arctic Coller Freezer 7 Pro should be here tomorrow :-jumpy.Gary

Arctic Cooler Freezer 7 Pro has arrived. Significant drop in CPU core temps already. Currently dual priming @ 3.4GHZ successfully for the last hour at 55C versus the 75C I was seeing with the stock cooler. I will be very happy if 3.4GHz proves stable for prime time operation!Gary

Update - 3.4GHz proved 4hr Othos stable @ 1.38V with 55C core temp. :-hah Now going for 3.6GHz @ 1.46V, but temps are pushing high 60s, even with my Arctic Freezer 7 Pro doing its coolest best. Still, its pretty impressive just how far these new Core 2 Duo chips will go with a little coaxing. If I can make it all the way to 4GHz then based on some of the mega threads forming in the main FS auditorium here, I might even have enough CPU grunt to run FSX straight out of the box! :-lol (I am joking of course)Gary

Just for info guys if you want to try a different cooler at some time the Zalman keeps my 6700 at around 48-52C at 3.4Ghz and 1.4V running Prime95. Not sure why it goes up and down. Maybe because the fan speed increases as the temperature drifts up, thus cooling more.Looking forward to seeing your 3.6Ghz.