Can anybody give me the right advice?Does FSX use the 3rd & 4th core effectively?Also, is it best to go with an E8500 & overclock it (to around 3.5) or Q9550.Which is the best motherboard to use to overclock an E8500?Cheers

Here's one of my "max-settings" beta runs in the MD11 with my Q6600. 100% means that all 4 cores are at 100%, each. You can see that rarely is CPU utilization below 50%. That means a dual would have been simply maxed out . . . and any peak above 50% would have NoT been available - at all - with a dual core. If you feed it, it will eat.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/193892.jpg

All cores above the firt and part of the 2nd are dedicated to autogen and terrainYes, a quad is better than a dual core however the primary application functions will always use the 1st core and part of the 2nd. If you use 3rd party addons such as ASX weather engine which are booted with FSX, it is best to assign the affinity of the program to the last core of the processor. That keeps the first 2 cores free for FSX exclusive and will help with perfWhen deciding between a dual and a quad there is only 1 question you need to answer.. will the dual run 600-800MHz faster than the quad in the system? If the answer is yes, go with the dual.. if the answer is no, go with the quad.

Let's see. 3.6 + .6(.8) = 4.2 (4.4)? Yikes. First, the difference between 2 cores 100% and 4 cores at 100% is . . . well, 100%. A dual at 100% x 3.6 and dual at 100% at 4.4 is, . . . well ~ 20%. That'll get a user a ~ 20% increase in FPS, but it will loose 80% of scenery loading, etc. Dual is an argument, just kinda hard to sell (let alone buy). Unless one is a uberclocker, (willing to endure hangin' on the edge of stability for a very uneven 20%/FPS - 80%/loading trade off), then the Quad wins in Every case.

D17S what utility program are you using?

Process explorer, here:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/bb896653.aspx

Thanks!