Well maybe by Q1 2008 the vid card picture will be clearer. I would rather avoid the 1st gen DX10 hardware (8800) if at all possible.So to will the Penryn picture be clearer. I see now that the Q9xxx or whatever it's called will be the Extreme Edition of the Pen and will be the first one shipped for desktops, and that's supposed to be in December.At a $999 price, I don't think I will get the Extreme Edition cpu. I will wait another month or two for the "regular" edition quads. But if I did get an EE, it would be the fastest FS cpu we could have I guess. For a brief time anyway.So all signs point for Jan-Feb-Mar for a confluence of 2nd gen DX10 cards and Penryn-class desktop cpu. RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

True. It's not the Core2"Dual" that did it. It was the Core2, single CPU. "Core2" does not mean 2 cores. It means the core (CPU) is a "second generation." The "Core" moniker will be dropped with Nethalem. We don't really know what they are going to call it. Note: AMD's leading version of the Core2, the Athlon, had been running FS9 pretty well all along. If I had the foresight to snag an Opteron way back then, and spool it up to ~ 3.0ghz, I Still would not be interested in this Core2 stuff. I would have been enjoying Core2 performance since 2003 and would just keep it running 'till Nethalem. Live and learn. I think this Q6600 @3.6ghz may be an opti-like, "future-proofer."

... and if you buy it correctly right now, "Sandy Bridge" could be your next upgrade target in 2010. Sounds kinda scary, but it's actually only 3 years. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/09/19/we...lem_successor/1

This is the system I just built and I'm very happy with FSX performance. Lian-Li PC60-B Case Corsair HX Series CMPSU-620HX 620W Power Supply Gigabyte P35 DS3R Intel Core2Duo E6850 Arctic Cooling Freezer7 Pro Crucual Ballistix 2GB PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066) EVGA 7950 GT OC 512 Mb Plextor PX-810SA/SW-BL 18X SATA DVD Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/sec Seagate Barracuda 7200.10250 GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/sec Craig

>> This is the system I just built and I'm very happy with FSX> performance.>And it's not very unlikely what I suggested so can my system really be that bad in FSX?> Lian-Li PC60-B Case> Corsair HX Series CMPSU-620HX 620W Power SupplyI have the 520W version of this in mind> Gigabyte P35 DS3RSame mb> Intel Core2Duo E6850CPU only one step above> Crucual Ballistix 2GB PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066)8500 instead of 6400 don't think it matters much> EVGA 7950 GT OC 512 MbThey don't sell 7950 where I live anymore otherwise I think this is the greatest difference compared to my suddestion 1950PRO

Wasn't implying your system wouldn't be good with FSX. Just letting you know what I was running with it. Lian-Li PC60-B Case Corsair HX Series CMPSU-620HX 620W Power Supply Gigabyte P35 DS3R Intel Core2Duo E6850 Arctic Cooling Freezer7 Pro Crucual Ballistix 2GB PC2-8500 (DDR2-1066) EVGA 7950 GT OC 512 Mb Plextor PX-810SA/SW-BL 18X SATA DVD Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/sec Seagate Barracuda 7200.10250 GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/secCraig

> Wasn't implying your system wouldn't be good with FSX. Just>letting> you know what I was running with it.>I was thinking about other posts in this thread were they think I would need more for FSX

>I have a Quad at 3.2 with a 8800, it runs most areas at 25fps>using stock planes, 3rd party planes take it down to 17. Man that's pathetic sounding. Seems to me Penryn might get you to 22 or so or 26 o'clocked to the max.

My impression is that penryn will get a 10% clock for clock advantage, then another 10% overclock (to ~ 4.0ghz.) For FS we might expect a 20% boost with penryn. It appears the reality of multi-cores became apparent too late in FSX's development. By then, the FSX team may have been essentially locked into a single core engine. The big dog, still, will be getting those 3rd and 4th cores fully on board. Sadly, it really seems that's not gonna happen 'till FS11. Getting the quad now could be a bit of future-proofing. Penryn or Kentsfield, there's not much FSX advantage, Remember the quad's pricing cycle? Like the Kentsfield quad, the initial penryn quad will be $1000. Also like the Kentsfield, it might take the Penryn quad a full year to get back down to $275. And all that waiting will net a 20% FSX single/quasi-dual core advantage, at best. Considering FX11 will be fully multi-core optimized, at that point the quad will be a must-have. If a person is building a system now anyway, a prudent financial choice might be to just go ahead and get the quad now. That way it will already be sitting in your socket when FX11 hits Otherwise, buying a dual now and a quad 2 years from now seems like it is just throwing away the price of the dual. This kind of forecasting is becoming possible because Intel's CPU road map is becoming extremely predictable. Intel wants us to buy Much more often, but it seems to me a user can stay quite up-to-date with a 3 year upgrade cycle. The next upgrade I'll be looking at could be Intel's 32nm Sandy Beach in 2010.