>You state - as fact - that FPS is not influenced by nos. of>cores. How do you know this? I have never seen a benchmark>test - good or bad - that uses a Core 2 Duo at over 4Ghz>speed. How do you know that there won't be a 'Stepped' effect>? Also, have you ever played FSX at a huge resolution such as>2560x1600 ? It may have an effect when GPU starts to become>limiting.>>You see, this is why I posed these "questions" - everyone>seems to have the answer, but none has proved it.You need to look harder in these forums then, as all bar the over 4GHz config have been tested and reported by myself and others in this forum before.>Anyhow, I intend to acquire a Quad and a very fast Core Duo at>around 4.5 or 4.8Ghz...and do some testing.I look forward to your thorough analysis of these configs. :-)Gary

Well someone needs to do one - it's the over 4Ghz situation that's sadly missing.As for benchmarking I reckon the difficult part is creating b/marks that are actually replicable and measurable at settings that are relevant to users and high enough for "real" differences due to h/ware can be measured.

>As for benchmarking I reckon the difficult part is creating>b/marks that are actually replicable and measurable at>settings that are relevant to users and high enough for "real">differences due to h/ware can be measured.That is precisely why I created FSXMark07, available here in the Avsim library. Consider using it when you get your hardware bits together for comparison. If you think it misses the mark, by all means come up with a better benchmark and share it with the rest of us.Gary

I disagree - motherboards that provide poor incremental voltage changes are never as good as those that give you a finer voltage tuning ability. You'll screw more out of your CPU if you have a board that gives you the capacity to modify all your voltages at fine levels. Just depends on whether or not you want to spend the time doing so ... and most people, understandably, do not. This board, however, needs work at the MSI end, but shows great capacity - i can get can alot more out of this CPU than I could with my previous p45 board.A :-)

Cool - I've been looking for that FSXMark thingey - there are around 15 hits on google...couldn't find it anywhere.Thnx....found it.....I assume it can be modified to use different aircraft...to a degree I guess....given it uses the default AP system.Cheers I'll take a look....with interest.

And, if you have stability issues, increase the MCH and FSB voltage by 0.1 or 0.2 v also....400 is reasonable high for a standard m/b and may need this.

If you disable A/gen completeyl, you will get a massive increase in prformance - surely if you're in a 747. why the need for it ? VFR, yes....you're better with a tad of Ai traffic to get some action in the airport and stuff Agen - unless it's properly designed over photscenery it's rubbish anyways.....just my 2 cents...!

One thing I notice straightaway....is that traffic is used. Traffic takes a while to "get up to speed"....it may have significantly more effect towards the end of the benchmarking than at the beginning....given that the test is only 5 minutes, it may be having little or no impact...period.Why not try it with zero traffic - the results may well be the same, although given traffic is very CPU-intensive, the results when comparing faster CPU's / more cores, may well differ.Alternatively, could the benchmark begin further out where there is little in the way of traffic, so that by the time it reaches your current 'starting point'...say, 10 or 15 minutes has elapsed and traffic is functioning fully ?

Also, I like the graphs you end up with...I think there may be a way of getting some proper statistical numbers from these.It will take one heck of a long time....

A FSB running at 400MHZ was the design speed for the P35 (and its rebranded follow-ons the X38/38, et al) - from conception - . PCIe-V2 was also always onboard, only was only enabled with the X38. These chipsets are a marketing evolution designed to satiate a lay audience. Shame on them? Maybe, but after all, Intel has to eat too.

Exactly, my P35 (P5K-E) runs at 400 FSB without any adjustments whatsoever.They were made this way.

Just to throw in my 2 cents, I have been running my sig machine for almost 3 months now and it's been running 100% stable and FSX is really a charm now.:)______________Efrain RuizLiveDISPATCHhttp://www.livedispatch.orgCooler Master cosmos SDFI LP UT P35 T2R (3-17-2008 BIOS) | E8400 @ 4GHz (500MHz x 8) | 2 x 2GB OCZ Flex II PC9200EVGA Nvidia GTX280Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Operating System RAID-0) | Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Flight Simulator RAID-0)Corsair CM PSU-750TX | Asus 20X DVD

Efrain, are you running on water with your setup?RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

>One thing I notice straightaway....is that traffic is used. >Traffic takes a while to "get up to speed"....it may have>significantly more effect towards the end of the benchmarking>than at the beginning....given that the test is only 5>minutes, it may be having little or no impact...period.>>Why not try it with zero traffic - the results may well be the>same, although given traffic is very CPU-intensive, the>results when comparing faster CPU's / more cores, may well>differ.>>Alternatively, could the benchmark begin further out where>there is little in the way of traffic, so that by the time it>reaches your current 'starting point'...say, 10 or 15 minutes>has elapsed and traffic is functioning fully ?Re traffic getting up to speed, I say it would be the other way in that the initial traffic load is higher than steady state due to multiple aircraft spawning in the air and pulling back from the gate at the same time. My thought is that it doesn't matter either way, as long as the sim is doing the same thing each time the benchmark runs for consistency purposes. Also, there is nothing stopping you changing the config file to zero traffic to eliminate any variability you may be experiencing with traffic, just make sure you do the same for subsequent benchmark runs so that you get comparable results.BTW, the original version of the benchmark was in fact 15 minutes long, however it was taking too long to run a series of benchmarks and I later found that the five minute window that I chose was not noticably impacted by shortening the benchmark.Gary

I forgot the contention. Was it: "CPU clock scaling makes no difference in FS." Yes? Really? I think that might end up being a tough boat to float.