Hey guys,Just looking for some advice. Its time for a new CPU and motherboard. I've been doing some researc and am looking at spending about $350AUD max on the CPU. From what I can gather, the E6400 is a great buy because of its overclocking abilities and runs at around the same price as the AMD X2 4600+ I'm willing to spend about $250AUD on the motherboard (something that is good for overclocking). Any advice?Its going to run my current Nvidia 7800GT 256MB PCI-E graphics card in it. This is primarily for running FSX. At the moment with my AMD 3500+ is running around 13FPS at a busy airport with AI, i'm hoping that by doubling the CPU power will give me another 5-10fps.Advice please gents!

>From what I can gather, the E6400 is a great buy because of>its overclocking abilities and runs at around the same price>as the AMD X2 4600+ >Yes I would get the E6400 for sure over the 4600+. I would get either an ASUS, DFI, or Abit motherboard with the E6400 so that you can overclock the E6400 pretty well, if you so choose, now or in the future. Those 3 motherboard brands tend to be the best overclockers in my experience.>This is primarily for running FSX. At the moment with my AMD>3500+ is running around 13FPS at a busy airport with AI, i'm>hoping that by doubling the CPU power will give me another>5-10fps.>At Heathrow, a big frame rate killer site, my rig now gets 18-20 fps with some AI, so I would think with that E6400 you could tweak your FSX to get 20+ fps with heavy AI. That 20 fps will be way smoother in FSX than it would have been in FS9 , too.Sounds like you have a good plan going. Just beware that you can only activate your FSX two times, before you have to call. I'm not sure if FSX will make you reactivate, after putting in your new mb + cpu or not.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2.5 ghz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (94.47), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Agree with Rhett, though I don't have my hands on the hardware. I'm on the fence between Intel P956 or NF570 chipset.scott s..

Only if you were upgrading just the CPU in an existing AMD system would I suggest the AMD option, otherwise it's C2D all the way!I have the Gigabyte DS3, which is a mid-range C2D motherboard that overclocks like crazy. Per my sig, I can comfortably run at 3.5GHz, up from 2.13GHz stock, with only a slight nudge in core voltage.Gary

Thanks for the feedback guys.As I've currently got a A8N-SLI m/b, I'm tempted to just spend the $450 on a AMD 5000+ chip. I'm not sure how much of an improvment that would be over getting a new m/b and E6400 or even E6600.Gary, the motherboard you've got (the 965G-DS3) is a cheaper choice ($250AUD) for me than the $350 option I was looking at and may just swing it Intels' way. How easy is it to overclock using that board? Is it all done via the BIOS or are there software options?Cheers guys,Kael

You can overclock via the BIOS or software, but BIOS got me as far as I did. Note with the E6400, a 3.2GHz overclock is more realistic, with perhaps more with better quality RAM.Gary

I only have mine running at 2.66Ghz as the BIOS is currently limited to 333mhz FSB. Still it goes well with my RAM at 1:1The performance is still very good even at my small overclock. I have benched it better than an FX-62 in most tests.You would certainly want the P965 chipset too. The current nvidia chipset for Conroe LGA775 does not overclock well. If you must have SLI capability, wait for nforce 600 series at the end of this month.FSX typically runs around 20FPS for me with some drops to 18 (after ALL the tweaks) 30% AI, no cars or boats, sparse autogen.FS9 is easily pushing 28+ FPS and stays there. Even when it does drop slightly it only goes to 24 FPS. This is at UK2000 EGLL with 90% AI traffic.Glenn

Look's like there is a new sheriff in town with Intel shipping the QX6700 quad core CPU. Here are some test numbers from PCMag:

hmm about 20% faster in FS than a C2D6800 Extreme.So that should push our frames into the mid-20's even with lots of AI in a big city. It's looking better for FSX+add-ons, maybe just a little.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2.5 ghz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (94.47), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian