Hi fellow simmers. Probably this was asked before, I'm sorry for that. Did try to search but could not find a thread with this hardware.I am now running an AMD Athlon 64 3500 on an Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe. I have 1 GB of RAM and an ATI X800XL 256MB videocard.My intention is an Intel 6600 Core 2 Duo, an i965 chipset based motherboard, 2 GB RAM. Videocard will be upgraded later, SLI not needed.Is there anyone among us who also upgraded from an Athlon 64 3500? If so, upgraded to what? Can I expect an (ohoh ;) ) FPS boost in FS2004 running on WindowsXP? I'm using the mainstream addons: PMDG series, LDS 767, ActiveSky, Ultimate Terrain Europe, AI traffic pack, RadarContact and some detailed sceneries of my favourite European airports. I'm aiming at a minimum FPS of 25 during landing at 'busy AI airports' (like EHAM) with real world weather...Please share your upgrade experiences with me or direct me to a thread with usefull info.Thanks everbody!

I did a similar upgrade a few months ago from a 3700+ to a E6400. With all sliders right except weather at ultra high default, UT traffic @ 80%, 4x AA 8X AF, 1280x960 res with the default flight (Cessna @ KSEA 34R) I went up from 22 FPS to 32 FPS average, which is a nice 45% boost. If I throw overclocking into the equation, the boost on my E6400 from 2.13GHz to 3.2GHz yielded 45 FPS at the same spot, giving an overall boost of 105%! My FPS is locked at 40 and most of the time it stays there.Having said that, I still find times when my FPS drops into the low twenties and ocassionally, if the weather, traffic, aircraft panel and scenery is heavy enough, even into the mid teens. I know others may say they have similar rigs and never see their FPS go below 25, well lets just say I've been benchmarking FS for many years on a multitude of rigs and this is the first one I haven't been able to pull down to single digit FPS.Overall I am extremely pleased with my upgrade and FS9 is finally the experience I had always hoped it to be. As long as you can stomach the ocassional drop in FPS below your stated minimum, I wholeheartedly recommend the upgrade you propose.Gary

Let us know what your results are, if you do this upgrade.I have a similar system as your present one and would be interested in hearing your results, too. Gary's reports have been helpful now and in the past and the more info the merrier.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

@Gary: Thanks for your info. An occasional drop below 25 FPS is no problem. As long as the sim keeps running smooth it's ok. I hate that jerky view on short final... ;)@Rhett: If I go for it, I'll post the results here.

I was facing the same issues - I had a socket 939 AMD 4000+ slightly overclocked to 2.6 ghz, and was wondering if it was worth upgrading my cpu. I had an EVGA NF4 SLI EDI|133-K8-NF41 that I bought last year when NewEgg was offering it with the EVGA|GF 7800GT 256, and so things seemed pretty good for FS9 at that time.Then, after the first FSX reviews were coming out, I decided to save my money for an upgrade for FS9 instead. First I bought 2 gigs of great corsair memory and a Antec Sonata II case (onsale at NewEgg), and was waiting for a decent mobo to come along. Finally, I bit on the Abit AB9 QuadGT and a Core2 Duo 6600 last week. What a difference - Huge frame rater increase - I was running the LDS and PMDG birds out of the usual big add on airports with 100% custom Ai (lot's of traffic), sliders 2 thirds over and getting about 10-12 FPS upon approach. Now, with everything maxed, I'm maybe down to 18 at the worst (Newark) while KSFO or PHNL or Amsterdam, always at least in the mid-20's, mostly more, with a fair amount of weather too. Night and day. (A huge FS9 boost, it's like a new sim!)A few words on power supplies and the Abit AB9 QuadGT. The Antec Sonata 2 comes with a 450 watt power supply (the case for $50 bucks after a rebate was a great deal) and it ran my overclocked AMD San Diego 4000+ and Evga 7800GT just fine for over a year, and the Core 2 Duos draw a lot less power, so unless you have more than 3 or 4 drives in your box, and maybe a huge video card, these + 500 Watt powers supplies seem to be excessive. (This power supply calculator link, http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp ,mentioned in other posts, seems to be quite decent)The Abit AB9 QuadGT, onsale right now at NewEgg is the easiest board I've ever used in a self-built computer, and seems like a great board with some decent upgrade potential (future proof? yeah right, like my EVGA board!) so if you're looking for a decent core 2 board, I would check this one out. One word of caution thought - the IDE controller on this, like all 965 boards, is a piece of (&^&@#! If you don't have a SATA optical drive, forget about loading your OS. If you have SATA drives, then all is good.Finally, I'm still using my EVGA 7800GT in this system, so for all the FS9 folks out there thinking about upgrading, (Like it hasn't been said before), you don't need a gazillion dollar video card to get better FS9 performance - it really is in the CPU.I'm back to flying (KSFO to EDDF in the 767 right now on my new machine - that's what autopilots are for, right?), but for anyone on the upgrade fence, I am speechless - all the sliders maxed and so smooth.Happy contrailsStephen

I'm thinking about upgrading form my 3800+ to a 4800 x2. I don't want a new board so I am going to have to find one that is socket 939 which is provong hard to find.

>I'm thinking about upgrading form my 3800+ to a 4800 x2. I>don't want a new board so I am going to have to find one that>is socket 939 which is provong hard to find.But you already have a Socket 939 board. Can't you just do a BIOS update and run a 4800+ on your existing board then?RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case