Hi allFirst off I,m not posting to show off far too old for that:),My old PC went to silicone heaven yesterday,I normally like to buy compenents and build my own, but today I bought a prebuilt HP PC at a price that was less that the parts would have cost me.Intel 6600 2.4gig2 gig ramATI X1600SE(weak link I think)My old PC was a Northwood [email protected] 256mb1 gig ram.I was hoping for a nice increase in performance and I got it:)Same settings in demo at TNCM in my old computer gave around 20FPS at best.Here;s what I got with the new system.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/159672.jpgThis is using an un-tweaked demo install, dropping 900 mhz from the p4 and the frame rate is more than doubled, whtas going on with these new dual core chips??.Posted not to boast but maybe to help other's thinking about upgrading, plus Is the graphics card the weak link I think it its?GTG wish I had backed up my system..... never again:(.cheersJohn

This is using an un-tweaked demo install, dropping 900 mhz from the p4 and the frame rate is more than doubled, whtas going on with these new dual core chips??.I just recently bought a Gateway E6600 system with a X1900 512MB Crossfire Edition card. Unfortunately for me I don't see the performance boost you see from my old 3.8GHZ P4 which died. (I think the problems the HD, so I think I may eventially revive it.!) It seems my system has a problem. It's clock speed for whatever reason is half of what it should be! It's CPU cores are clocking at 1.2Ghz not 2.4 Ghz. The bus speed is 133.3Mhz not 266 Mhz for an effective FSB speed of 533Mhz not 1066Mhz it should be. After about a week back and forth with Tech support including a full system restore wiping out my FS installations, I finally got them to acknowledge the problem is hardware related, and now I have to ship it back to them (Not thrilled about having to lay out shipping costs for a system just over 1 month old!!) to get it fixed. Even with the reduced clock speeds, the 2 cores still produce performance just a few FPS slower than my old system. I know a lot of people say FS9 doesn't utilize both cores but the performance tab of the task manager does indicate both cores are being utilized (Although I'm sure it's not fully optimized.) so that, the fact it operates on a 65ns die which means it doesn't have to work as hard and the larger L2 Cache accounts for the much improved performance. Hopefully I'll get my system back fixed, so I can see the benefits of this system also!!

Maybe is didn't get you right,but have you ever heard about DDR? ;)If you have an effective bus speed of 133 Mhz it is called 266 Mhz DDR.So it is absolute normal when your bios is showing youthe half of the speed, cause the DDR rate is a marketing label:Because of the Double Data Rate, the marketing guys names twice the speed.But if you have an Core2Duo CPU, and 133 Mhz (or 266 Mhz DDR) FSB Speed,your memory seems to be very weak and slow.IMHO it should be at least 533 Mhz DDR.I`ve using AMD Chips for about 8 Years now,but the Conroe Core2Duo (6600 and up) will drive me back to Intel,because it is an masterpiece of CPU construction.The whole design of this baby is made for speed,and AMD has nothing against it.

I to love AMD but with core duo I'm going to have to start two timing! One of the cores in conroe can outpace must other single core processors. It's a shame fsx can't exploit it more like other games can.I think the next 9 months will be very interesting when we see AMD and Intel duke it out with their single die 4 cores. I hope ACES have their eye on that ball!

>Maybe is didn't get you right,>but have you ever heard about DDR? ;)>If you have an effective bus speed of 133 Mhz it is called 266>Mhz DDR.>So it is absolute normal when your bios is showing you>the half of the speed, cause the DDR rate is a marketing>label:>Because of the Double Data Rate, the marketing guys names>twice the speed.>>But if you have an Core2Duo CPU, and 133 Mhz (or 266 Mhz DDR)>FSB Speed,>your memory seems to be very weak and slow.>IMHO it should be at least 533 Mhz DDR.>>>I`ve using AMD Chips for about 8 Years now,>but the Conroe Core2Duo (6600 and up) will drive me back to>Intel,>because it is an masterpiece of CPU construction.>The whole design of this baby is made for speed,>and AMD has nothing against it.What complete tosh. Only the RAM is effected in this way, NOT the FSB.Core 2 Duo runs on a quad pumped 266mhz FSB giving an effective 1066mhz FSB speed.For the RAM to run at 1:1 Ratio you need 266mhz DDR2 which is in effect (and labelled as) 533mhz as it is DDR2. You can also use 667 and 800 mhz DDR2 so that overclocking becomes easier. This means at 1:1 ratio you can now run FSB at 333 (667) and 400 (800) and still be within spec on the RAM without overclocking it. You did the right thing sending it back. It may have been just an incorrect BIOS setting, but it sounds like they may have put an incompatible LGA775 motherboard into your system.Good luck

Quick updateThe graphics card is a HUGE bottle neck in FSX it shows up with massive varations in frame rate 20 to 90 with big lags and stutters.Turning off AA and AF gives a small improvement in FPS but the stutters are gone stable at 70FPS plus.I'm a Live for speed racing fan as well as a FS addict,this software showed up the bottle neck very clearly.In my old system turning down resolution,turning off AA and AF made no difference to the frame rate, With the new system 4x AA 8xAF gives me 50 FPS, turning these off gives me 220FPS!!Ordered a 7900GTO to correct the imbalance, expensive hobby isn't it:) and an expensive mistake by me, no more prebuilt PC's thank you:)

>>Maybe is didn't get you right,>>but have you ever heard about DDR? ;)>>If you have an effective bus speed of 133 Mhz it is called>266>>Mhz DDR.>>So it is absolute normal when your bios is showing you>>the half of the speed, cause the DDR rate is a marketing>>label:>>Because of the Double Data Rate, the marketing guys names>>twice the speed.>>>>But if you have an Core2Duo CPU, and 133 Mhz (or 266 Mhz>DDR)>>FSB Speed,>>your memory seems to be very weak and slow.>>IMHO it should be at least 533 Mhz DDR.>>>>>>I`ve using AMD Chips for about 8 Years now,>>but the Conroe Core2Duo (6600 and up) will drive me back to>>Intel,>>because it is an masterpiece of CPU construction.>>The whole design of this baby is made for speed,>>and AMD has nothing against it.>>>What complete tosh. Only the RAM is effected in this way, NOT>the FSB.>>Core 2 Duo runs on a quad pumped 266mhz FSB giving an>effective 1066mhz FSB speed.>>For the RAM to run at 1:1 Ratio you need 266mhz DDR2 which is>in effect (and labelled as) 533mhz as it is DDR2. You can also>use 667 and 800 mhz DDR2 so that overclocking becomes easier.>This means at 1:1 ratio you can now run FSB at 333 (667) and>400 (800) and still be within spec on the RAM without>overclocking it. >>You did the right thing sending it back. It may have been just>an incorrect BIOS setting, but it sounds like they may have>put an incompatible LGA775 motherboard into your system.>>Good luckThanks! My memory is PC5300 667Mhz DDR2. At first I thought the problem was bad memory sticks, so I bought 2GB more. I figured if that wasn't the problem, (which it wasn't), I could just use it to make the system a 4GB system. (Which I was going to do in the future anyway!!) I think it's just a bad motherboard. I don't think it's the wrong motherboard, because the system does reports it has the Intel 975X chipset. I don't think it's the CPU because it appears to be using the correct clock multiplier (9X), the external bus seems to be the root problem. I thought maybe a jumper on the MB wasn't set properly, but according to Gateway the only jumper on the MB is the BIOS reset jumper (Which they also had me try to no avail!).

I've used Intel and AMD over the years and I keep going back to AMD. Fact of the matter is as soon as one comes out with the latest and greatest the other one is right behind it. Good way to drive yourself crazy. Craig