Replacing my e4300 cpu with a e6850 cpu. Have a 8800GTX card so what I'm asking is in FS9 (thats 9 not X) where would be the areas that I would notice a difference? Does texture loading and mesh come from the cpu or GPU?

You'll see about a 40-50% boost in worst-case FPS, which is very noticable. Texture and mesh loading performance will be a little bit quicker, especially if you lock your FPS at say 30, because the rendering engine will have more time between frames to update this stuff.Before you upgrade to the E6850, have you considered overclocking your e4300? My son's E4300 runs at 3.0GHz on a 1333MHz CPU bus (ie. same speed as the E6850) at stock voltage, even with the stock cooler.Gary

I bought the E4300 to overclock but never could squeeze anything out of it with out it shutting down using a stock cooler. So I was a bit disappointed with that but still happy with the performance of the 1.8. Now that the 3gigs are at a fair price I want to switch it out since i dont use FSX and can only benefit from one of the two cores I dont need to even think of quads.I'm just looking to add smoothness in the Tongass and Misty areas on heavy weather days and feel a higher cpu will do that. Since I use Tracker IR i'm always looking around and that when I notice I could improve the smoothness.I do lock my FPS at 30 so I really hope the higher cpu will help in smooth out the view when panning around.

In that case, an E6850 will fit the bill perfectly. Just make sure your motherboard supports these newer 1333MHz bus CPUs before you buy.Also, re your 30 FPS goal, your upgraded rig will perform similarly to mine in my sig. There are times when my FS9 FPS briefly dips to the low teens FPS when the weather sliders are maxed out and there is thick cloud from horizon to horizonal. If I pull the visibility and cloud draw sliders back one or two notches, the dip is only in the mid twenties FPS. Other than at busy airports, where my 100% AI setting with Ultimate Traffic AI everywhere brings my FPS down to the mid-low twenties, my FPS usually sits pegged at my frame rate lock of 30.Gary

Well Gary, you nailed it. At FlyTampa KSEA with Ultimate Traffic I have a solid 30 FPS with the new CPU. Before I think it would range from the low 20's to low teens.Putting in the new CPU I did find out some things however. First I think the reason why I couldn't overclock the e4300 was because I didnt have the updated BIOS for the mobo to support the higher FSB. I have the P5N32-SLI from ASUS and learned from seeing if the new CPU was supported that at time of purchase the mobo has a note saying it would support higher FSB but it seems they didnt have the BIOS or driver for it at that time. I thought it was because it was running to hot?! :-roll Also I found ASUS probe II on the support CD which I've been trying to get to work via download over the internet but was using Probe I which never worked on my system. Thank goodness I did because I didnt mount the heatsink 100% and found during my first test that the CPU was running hot (107*C when I had FS running). Shut it down and fixed the problem and now it shows 30C idle and 55C with under FS load.For a second last night I thought about reloading FSX since I should now have a system to really rock it but then realized that although I love the planes, panels, air movement and eye candy of FSX, I would be flying around in a dust bowl of default airports and would miss my Geo-render, FlightScenery Washington/Oregon stuff. Its hard to use both because once FSX spoils you on the new details in the VC, textures, smoothness and air movement- going back to FS9 takes a while to relove.