Hi,I'm thinking of taking the step towards Windows Vista and FSX and DX10 from WinXP and FS9 and I need some advice what hardware (if any) I should/must upgrade to have a good balance between performance/looks in FSX. In FS I mainly fly LDS's 767 with FS2Crew and I'm using Active Sky.Today my hardware looks like this:Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2,4 GHz @ 2,7 GHz2 GB Corsair Extreme RAMSATA-300 Raid0 disk setATI Radeon X1900 XTX 512 MBThoughts I have are:- does FSX benefit more from upgradring the CPU or the GFX card?- does FSX take advantage of mult core CPUs...upgrade to a Quad CPU?- if upgrading the GFX card, should I go for a 8800GTX Ultra 768 MB or a less expensive but as I understood it still very fast (possibly even faster?) fabric overclocked 8800GT 512 MB?- does FSX utilize all the GFX card memory, any idea to have a GFX card with more than 512 MB?I know a SP1 was released some time ago for FSX that as I understood it should amongst other things tune the performance in the original version, how much of an improvment was the SP?These were the questions I could come up with right now but maybe there are other important things to consider as well, I would greatly appreciate any input on the subject!Best,Richard

Forget the quad (as you already have a good CPU) and forget the 8800 GTX as it won't make any difference compared to an 8800 anything in low FPS situations.Buy an Arctic Cooler Freezer Pro 7 cooler for $20 and install, overclock your E6600 to 3.2GHz+, and pop in an 8800 GT 512M for $250-$300. Add a dash of Vista and you're all set!Gary

I agree with Gary,But I'd do it step-by-step1. Get the cooler and over-clockYou may find that that your graphics card meets your needs2. Get the 8800GT3. Get Vista (not upgrade) and DUAL boot. You might decide you still like XP!!!regardsJim

Thanks for your input guys, even thought it would have been fun with some new HW I'm glad if I can still get good performance/looks with the HW I already got and so will my wallet ;)About further overclocking the CPU I would love that but without in any way beeing a guru when it comes to overclocking I invested quite an amount of time when I first got the CPU and I never managed to have it go much higher than 2,7 GHz beeing stable but maybe this Arctic cooler could help...?Are there any other important parameters in BIOS that you should always adjust to be able to have the CPU go faster...I know you can adjust memory timings, voltage for both AGP and CPU and memory and so on but I find it a bit hard to know what to adjust...?Best,

Keep the memory speed as close to its rated speed as possible by increasing the memory divider. With an E6600, you should be able to hit 3.2GHz without adjusting any voltage. If you tell me exactly what motherboard you have, I'll tell you some recommended BIOS settings.Edit: and I'll also need your memory speed (eg. DDR2-800)Gary

Hi Gary,Very kind of you trying to help me!My motherboard is an ASUS P5W DH DELUXE and as for the memory type the receipt reads "Corsair XMS2 Xtreme DDR2 XMS2-6400 (5-5-5-12) (2x512)"I tried manually raising the CPU to 3,2 GHz but when doing so my computer restarts by itself when loading Windows. Then I tried ASUS AI N.O.S where it should automatically overclock the CPU but by doing so I get a lower score when running 3DMark (about 5700 3DMarks) compared to when I had the CPU manually set to 2,7 GHz where I got about 6000 3DMarks.Best,

What is likely happening is that your memory (which is rated at 800MHz), is scaling up proportionally with your CPU overclock, so when you increase from 2.4GHz to 3.2GHz CPU overclock (ie. 33%) your memory is likely scaling up from 800MHz to 1066MHz (ie the same 33%).Try setting the DRAM Frequency to DDR-533 or DDR-667 (equates to 710MHz and 889MHz respectively at your 3.2GHz overclock) when the CPU clock is set to 266MHz and see how you go.Alternatively, I see there is an overclock options setting, where I'd try Overclock 30% and FSB1333/DDR2-667. Let us know how you go.Gary

You may want to up your CPU Voltage too. That helps if your system is unstable. But then you need to watch your cpu core temp ...that way a good cooler would help.Here is a pictorial over clocking for your motherboard. Except the CPU used here is an E6700. The CPU setting here 1.35v I have mine up to 1.55 . Yes.. I have the same MB and the E6600 and I have it OCed to 3.3Ghz.Since you are already ready to get a new CPU..what the heck! chalk it of the "learning cost" if anything happens :)http://www.legionhardware.com/document.php?id=570&p=1PS: But...when Installing an OS like Vista. Install it under non OC conditions.

While upping the CPU voltage will likely increase the overclock that is achieved, it is best to find out how far the CPU will overclock at stock voltages and keeping other system components within their specifications. Case in point, the 3.2GHz overclock I have with my E6400 is at stock voltage.Anothing thing I should have mentioned to is set the PCI Express Frequency to 100MHz and the PCI Clock Synchronisation Mode to 33.33MHz, thus keeping these two busses at spec while finding the CPU's overclocking limits.Gary

OK guys, will do some more testing and let you know how it goes.

yeah but the Radeon 1900 won't meet his needs for DX10....so I'd get the 8800GT anyway ;)

Guys...I'm happy to tell you that after your help, studying some overclocking guides and with some help from a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme cooler for the CPU and a ZEROtherm GX815 Gamer Edition cooler for the GFX card I'm now running perfectly stable at 3.15 GHz!I was also able to increase the GFX core speed from 650 MHz -> 700 and the memory speed from 775 MHz -> 875 increasing my 3DMark score from 5800-5900 -> +6500 and FS9 has never run smoother :) and all this with a both cooler and more silent PC than it used to be so I'm more than pleased at the moment :)As for DX10 I have ordered a e-GeForce 8800GT SSC 512MB from EVGA but maybe I'll cancel that order since I'm so happy with my present rig and what almost feels like a new FS9!Thanks alot guys for helping me not waste my money :)Best,