>IF i buy the QX9650 i was actually planning to OC it to 4GHz.>I have seen it done in an article and without additional>cooling devices. This i guess would assure me of a significant>FPS gain?>And furthermore, will the 4 cores not help me run my>additional prcocesses, like weather addons (ASX), traffic>addons (MTX) and so on, more smoothly?You will be overclocking it to at least 4GHz is my prediction. Everyone else is. I have heard no stories otherwise.My QX9650 runs at 4.0GHz at a paltry voltage of 1.2875v. This is only slightly over default vCore of 1.25v. In fact, I've never tried to fine tune it to see if it would fly at less than 1.2875. I have moved beyond 4.0GHz and discovered mine does require vCore of 1.45 or slightly less to run (prime95 Torture Test passes) at 4.302GHz. 1.45v is the maximum rated vCore by Intel for this processor. This is on room air with case cover off. I have a low BTU air conditioner that I can use to blow directly at my CPU, video card, memory and mainboard, but I am finding I simply don't need it now, at least not for an overclock to 4.302Ghz. From Anand's article, they are happy using 1.6v for their testbed, which is water cooled. They can run this processor at over 4.5Ghz using this sort of vCore. I see no point in running past 4.3Ghz for now, but again, I'm sure it could. 1.45v seems like about as high as I'd like to go to keep the processore working for years to come. I can attest you can run all other separate add-ons on the remaining two cores. Dedicate two processors for FSX (using the nice freeware utility, "Set Affinity", and maybe one core for other addons used in realtime, such as ActiveSky, FSD or ProFlight, etc. You will experience very zippy performance from the addons, and will not see nary a hiccough when you run these while FS is operating. Plz forgive, but I am generalizing from FS9 which is all I am running currently. FSX from my understanding uses a 2nd core for texture loading/processing, whereas FS9 doesn't. I have FSX sitting in a box, but have been so thrilled being able to finally run FS9 flawlessly that I am not too anxious to go back to struggling performance. In due time!I am not running my CPU currently beyond 3.5Ghz as there is simply no need. FS9 runs everything fully maxed at this level, with birds like PMDG 747 locked at 40 and it doesn't dip on this machine, ever. I can lock it higher (50 -60), but I understand there is better texture loading management if you tune for a locked frame rate. I think the other big issue is how long you will be in it for. I figure this guy is going to run for the next 4-5 years with no need for upgrades, save a new GPU. I think as we see more apps designed to use multicore one can only guess the service life of Quads will extend. It's nice to know I have 4 CPUs running at 4.3Ghz, when I need them to.Even so, it's a splurge. I didn't care this time around. With the US economy as it is, I recommend converting paper assets into tangible goods ASAP!By the way, Crysis runs great on this machine. That game is pretty amazing in places . . .QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed

Jourdog, Could you post your BIOS specs and settings, this would really be a big help to me.Clayhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...ers/Dopke01.jpgClayton T. Dopke (Clay)Major, USAF (retired)"Drac"

Hi Ray,thanks for taking time to write an answer. Let me add a few words...>...To conclude that running at>1920*1200 a 3870X2 produces almost half the performance>of a 3870 sounds ridiculous quite frankly. It can only be down>to a driver issue and if that is the case it will soon be>addressed.That's probably exactly the point. However, it's not only a question of the graphics card driver, but the game has to support multi-GPUs as well. OK, the performance of the 3870X2 being lower than a single 3870 will hopefully be addressed by ATI soon. Actually I've no doubt about that.But what about Microsoft implementing SLI/Crossfire support in FSX? How long is SLI around yet? No reaction from Microsoft 'til now. So a speedup by changing from single-GPU to multi-GPU in FSX is and remains a dream. The story is different if we talk about other games, of course.>Why is the difference between the 8800 and 3870 cards not>shown in other If the 8800 Ultra is so much faster than the>3870X2 why is this not borne out in other reviews?Do you know other hardware reviews with the flight simulator in their test suite? Please let me know, I'm very interested to find more systematic tests. Tom's hardware is the only place where I could find systematic test results for FSX. And since FSX is really different from other popular games, these numbers are really important. Actually I don't care about some minor percentage points plus or minus, but if there are big differences I think I should better know before I go shopping.><DX10>>>>Why is that not the opinion of those here? If DX10 was that>much better people would be flocking to it. The fact is,>they're not because it isn't.I asked that myself and I don't have an answer. I guess it has something to do with their change to FSX SP2, not just from DX9 to DX10. However, I saw such an effect on the extreme high-end system of a friend of mine when we carefully benchmarked a predefined flight (not the Sitka example). In our case and depending on the scenery we ended up between loosing like 10% and gaining up to 50% going from DX9 to DX10. Unfortunately, when I wanted to dig deeper my friend got a little impatient since he is not really interested in FSX. Anyway, you need quite a CPU to be sure FSX is not CPU-bound any more. I'm not sure, but don't expect to see this effect without insane overclocking (a QX9650 in our case).>If you then look at the 3DMark06 table the 3870X2 beats>everything. Talk about confusing information!:-hmmm 3DMark06 is very responsive to multi-GPU setups. In my opinion it's rather a measure for number-loving enthusiasts, but not a good indication for FSX performance.

Hi flyalot,<>If by the game you mean FSX it doesn't look for GPUs or multiple CPU cores for that matter. It simply uses whatever is made available.<>I imagine if it could have been implemented by Aces it would have been. Just as they would have taken advantage of multiple CPU cores if they could have done but Phil Taylor has already said it is extremely difficult to program FSX to that end.<No. TomsHardware is the only one. I was referring to other 3870X2 reviews where they tend to use Crysis and other popular games. Unfortunately FSX isn't considered popular by the gaming community despite the sales numbers. Just Google '3870X2' and 'review'.<>Unfortunately they don't exist. You can probably say FS9 isn't CPU bound with an E8400 as FPS can reach 130+. Come back in 3 years and there will probably be processors that can return those numbers in FSX. :-)<<3DMark06 is very responsive to multi-GPU setups. In my opinion it's rather a measure for number-loving enthusiasts, but not a good indication for FSX performance.>>And that's precisely why I don't use it. It's meaningless for FS9/FSX. The only numbers that really count are their fps. ;-)Cheers,