Can I ask which of these would be best for FSX:Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black EditionBoth are similarly priced here in the UK, which is about as far as I can stretch to at the moment. I'd just like to know which gets your vote... ThanksIan

They're priced similarly because they perform similarly. If you get an AM3 motherboard with that PII 940 you'll have much more of an upgrade path than if you buy a Socket T motherboard for that Q9400. That's really the only advantage either platform has over the other.

Can I ask which of these would be best for FSX:Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400AMD Phenom II X4 940 Black EditionBoth are similarly priced here in the UK, which is about as far as I can stretch to at the moment. I'd just like to know which gets your vote... ThanksIan

I think you'll get more performance at stock with the 940 and if you overclock you'll have one heck of a beast. You can either buy an AM2+ or AM3, and the good thing is that like the last poster said, the compatibility on AMD is very good. I got an AM2+ board in jan 2008 when I had an AMD 4200+ X2 to get ready for the phenoms, then I got a phenom in july 2008. Then I went to a high end AM2+ motherboard in March this year. So they work with a very wide range of CPUs. From the AMD Semprons to the BE Phenoms... and the good thing is AM3 phenoms still work in an AM2+ socket or AM3, due to the memory controllers being able to handle DDR2 and DDR3 :(. Later I hope to get the Phenom 920 or 940 as well, which will be a simple upgrade with no problems as thie motherboard I'm running on has AM3 support.