Hi allI'm thinking of upgrading from an AMD 4000 single core to an AMD Opteron Dual core with 2x2400 and 2x1024 second-level cache.I thought as a stop-gap to prolong the life of my 939 socket/AGP video card system for as long as possible, no chance of a complete system re-build at the moment. Waddya think? Would cost

I was in a similar situation a few months ago and upgraded from an AMD 64 3000 (1.8 Ghz overclocked to 2.2 Ghz) single processor to an Opteron 180 (2.4 Ghz) Dual Core. The 4000 you have is already 2.4 Ghz, but I still think it would be worth the upgrade if you are using the latest patch for FSX. It does use more of the second core than the original FSX used, and most other programs I am using show a marked increase in performance. I couldn't justify replacing all of my hardware to go to an Intel Core Duo just for a bit more speed. The new processor is quite fast enough for most anything I do. In FSX, I'm getting 15-20 FPS in urban areas and 35-40 FPS in rural area at 1600 x 1200 with lots of eye candy and autogen. I'm using an Nvidia 7900GS, and 2GB RAM on WinXP.

Thanks for your answer, Mr.Aspenleaf. I'm actually running the 4000 as a 4200 (2.6Ghz) It's perfectly stable at that speed, I've actually tried it up to 2.9Ghz, where it also ran reliably, but I felt that the temp. increase wasn't worth the gain I was seeing in FSX. And also, strangly enough, although it ran stably in FSX, the computer sometimes hung when doing a restart, which was a sign that something was running on the bleeding edge :-)I'm a bit dissapointed that yours was the only answer, all the hardware cracks here seem to be on holiday :-) Still not sure what to do, my wife is doing a song and dance about it anyway (wouldn't you know it :-) ), so I gotta be sure before I risk a divorce,hehe...BestGrahame

My two bobs worth is that you will hardly notice a difference in FSX performance. Firstly, your single core speed (2.6GHz) now is about the same as one core on your proposed replacement CPU (2.4GHz) with it newer CPU optimisations. Secondly, whilst FSX does indeed give the second core a good flogging, it doesn't seem to translate into anything other than faster load times. In fact, the few that have tried disabling one core (me included) report slightly higher FPS in FSX with only one core - go figure!The main benefit that a dual core CPU will give the OS the ability to balance tasks across both cores, giving an overall smoother experience, especially if you run a bunch of addons.Gary