I have a 4y/o system now that I have been planning to upgrade mobo, cpu, gpu & ram for. OK, perhaps I should reframe this: I have a very nice set of 4 15K scsi drives and a Lian Li case I'd like to use in a new system :(). I have been patiently awaiting a Penryn CPU, probably quad core now, but after having read some stuff about the fundamental changes to architecture that Nehalem offers, I am inclined to maybe wait 08 out until the first Nehalems come along, hopefully towards the end of 08. It seems as if having an on board memory controller and the improved latency that this brings could make Nehalem a much better performer than its predecessors. I have avoided FSX for all the various reasons one might, and from what I gather, the very top end Penryns may not push FSX enough to happily handle all the payware I find myself wanting to use. Put another way, I'd sure like some headroom! I know there are some who are happy with their current high end machines for FSX, but my impression is there are plenty more who cough up some $$ and end up with the question, "Shouldn't I be getting better performance . . . yada yada." I don't wish to go this road, and would prefer to wait it out until there is something that can push FSX so there are . . . no performance issues! Til #### freezes over you say!Anyway, if you have thoughts on this topic please RSVP . . .Noel

Ive got a penryn its awesome. on good water cooling you can get 4.7GHz. I run my QX9650 at 5.7GHz on a massive phase Change cooler.Also i think nehalem is pentium 5 which means that its bad for fsx.On a forum someone had a QX9650 at 4.1GHz on air and with FSX he ran bloom and all custom sliders on max with 1680x1050x32. Traffic all on 50% never drops below 25FPS. Also on air cooling you can get to 4.3GHz. Go with penryn man. I run fsx to the max, max, max custom sliders to max bloom. My Traffic X 100%. Probably because of my 2.5K Cooler lol. Also wait till january when nvidias 9800GTX comes out. its double as powerful as an 8800Ultra and in fsx its a 10FPS increase on the 8800's. good luck.

Cool, that is some inspirational testimony. I have a very cool (pardon the pun) temperature control solution that has allowed me to cool the entire box, and use stock HSF's on GPU & CPU. I've described it here before, so suffice it to say it works great, and works on ANY PC, without modification: I installed a 10K BTU A/C unit thru the wall so that it blows directly from point blank range into the entire PC with the side cover off. I can also direct more flow if needed directly into the CPU fan uptake, but found this is not necessary. I am able to get 3.5GHz out of a 3.06 Northwood, using a stock fan only. It's a very nice solution, and in our climate with warm temps I need the cooling anyway, and for winter weather, i dial down the fan flow rate. It's a whisper quiet (ha, not quite) Sharp AC 110v AC unit.That is encouraging. I will wait until your CPU or better becomes a little more affordable, and perhaps go from there. I think I'd fork over $500 or so, but that's about it for a CPU.Why would Nehahem not work well for FSX? And, 9800GTX sounds attractive :()

>>I have been patiently awaiting a Penryn CPU, probably quad>core now, but after having read some stuff about the>fundamental changes to architecture that Nehalem offers, I am>inclined to maybe wait 08 out until the first Nehalems come>along, hopefully towards the end of 08. It seems as if having>an on board memory controller and the improved latency that>this brings could make Nehalem a much better performer than>its predecessors. Well, true but also don't forget that Nehalem will be the first generation, and so that always bears additional scrutiny from us the hardware hobbyist.On the other hand the Conroe design was also the first generation of its class of cpu, and I think its pretty fair to say it was a home run from the start.Penryn is indeed an evolution of the Conroe. One could also think of Penryn as a refinement...an ultimate development of the Conroe/Core architecture. And then the next architecture will be the Nehalem with no more fsb...more AMD-like in that respect.>I have avoided FSX for all the various>reasons one might, and from what I gather, the very top end>Penryns may not push FSX enough to happily handle all the>payware I find myself wanting to use. That's not what I gather from all of the full breadth of user reports. Generally it seems that the higher-end core2's (E6700's, Q6600's, etc.) are very satisfying to their users.Seems like when people get poor performances from these new cpu's (I had one guy getting 12 fps with a Q6600, which is half what I get on my 2 year old rig) there is always some config problem going on.Take for example todays thread in which the fellow had a Q6600 and he was getting single-digit frames. Turns out he had a sound card driver conflict going on.>>Anyway, if you have thoughts on this topic please RSVP . . .>>NoelNoel I'd say upgrade when your cycle is right to upgrade. 4 years is a long time, but if that's the way you do it, by all means do it.Personally, my cycle is 2-3 years, and I am due for a Penryn generation cpu system here in a few months time. From all reports, a Penryn quad runs FSX very well with complex addons. And they appear to overclock quite well.If Nehalem comes out 1 year from now, and it is wonderful, then I might be inclined to get one of those, even if I just built my Penryn a year previously. But for me, for now, the time is getting right, so I will build.Another consideration I always make is how is the FS world? That means, I do not upgrade right after a new version of FS comes out. I would rather upgrade about midway through the life cycle of an FS version. That way I am guaranteed to have hardware that is order-and-a-power greater than the best hardware that was out when that version of FS was released. That way, I'm guaranteed to get a flight sim that runs pretty well on that hardware.I've been doin' that for many years now and it always works out for me.Those are my thoughts ;) what there are of them. haha.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

Much obliged Rhett. My 4 year cycle is actually not totally accurate as I've upgraded the CPU and GPU once during the past 4.5y. My usual prompts for an full upgrade are: double the system thruput or better, and maybe 4x the GPU thruput or better. It appears we are there now with the new penryns. I have 4 15K Cheetah drives with 5y warranties, the first of which is 4.5y old, and still hums along with 100% reliability readings thru SMART, tho I hear that doesn't mean much. At the time of the last build I needed the fast access time for another application, and now what the hey I have the SCSI controller, so I continue on with these pricier, tho durable drives. The CPU/board/GPU/memory are moving to my spouse's study.

Nehalem is bad for fsx because it is pentium. The way pentium crushes data is good for office work like running several applications for work. But when it comes to gaming pentium is terrible. A 3GHz pentium is 1GHz in FSX it can run minimum settings at 10FPS. Whereas a 3GHz core 2 duo can run almost max settings in fsx. Pentiums are harder to overclock plus nehalem has 8 cores which makes it super hard to overclock and since it will only be at 4GHz your maximum clock will be about 4.6GHz on water. But because this is a new pentium it will probably be a bit more improved so maybe a 4.6GHz nehalem would get you about the performance of a 3.8GHz processor.Bye.

My understanding is that the initial Nehalem will be a Quad core. It will be a heavily tweaked Penryn (Core2) with an AMD style Hypertransport FSB.To belabor the Buss vs Racetrack analogy: If a racetrack can handle a 300mph race car, increasing the racetrack's capacity to 400mph will NoT make a 100 MPH car go faster. For instance, AMD Still has the fastest 'FSB' racetrack technology with their Hypertransport tech. It does them absolutely no good because the data 'cars' don't go near fast enough to need it. . . . and now Intel is boasting that this same technology is going to increase performance? I don't buy it and neither should we. It's going to take more than an AMD style onboard memory controller and a Hypertransport based FSB to make Nehalem a winner. It's still just a higher capacity buss. There's gotta be something else about that new architecture (that we yet to hear even a peep about) or Nehalem is going to yet another utterly marginal improvement, like the Penryn (i.e., a +10% dud). Maybe they're keeping it a secret, ya never know.

>Ive got a penryn its awesome. on good water cooling you can>get 4.7GHz. I run my QX9650 at 5.7GHz on a massive phase>Change cooler.5.7GHz? Woah! If you could attach a pic of your setup that would be nice. How much hassle and $$ was involved in your phase change solution? I'm sure it's much more potent than my AC unit for the CPU, however the plus on the AC is that the entire box is kept cool including my 4 15K drives, GPU, mainboard and northbridge, memory, etc. At one point I had a 4" diameter flex aluminum hose that directed about 40% of the output of my wall AC directly over the retail HSF of my Northwood, and saw resting temps of 17C, and peak temps of 44C at 3.5GHz. Prior to this cooling solution I would get temps to 70C at peak. I discovered this lower temp did not translate to better overclocking, so I removed the hose and run peak temps of about 56C now which is all that is needed to run at 3.5GHz.

nehalem is exactly like an xeon. fast clock speed good bus and everything but the way it uses it is a total let down.