I'm debating upgrading to a 980 chip and thinking about overclocking. I have a 920 right now with a 5870 with 3 monitors in eyefiniti mode. It's a stock system, rock solid, and very quiet (near silent most of the time). I use it for FSX, Adobe CS5, and as a home theater PC. FSX currently gets about 20 FPS in high-detail areas (settings near max); 60 FPS in the air. Price isn't an issue, I'm more concerned with stability both with FSX as well as CS5. I'm curious what everyone's experience has been after overclocking and using for a few weeks. Are your systems stable over a long period of time? Do you leave them running or shut them off?How's the noise level? Any motherboard / memory / cooling system recommendations (something very quiet preferably)?Also, thinking about changing to dual Nvidia 470 or 480s in SLI. CUDA works better with CS5. Problem is heat though, from what I hear. My 5870 is great and runs pretty cool. Any advice?Thanks for any info.

My system is stable, however I still have not worked out problems with my 5870. I am thinking that my 5870 overheats, causing black squares under heavy load. I think the 980x is throwing too much at it. i will be interested when the next generation 480gtx comes out. Hopefully its cooler. Noise level is ok I have 7 fans, I think the biggest noise is the pump for the liquid cooling. If I had to re-do my build I think I may have chosen a 470 or 480gtx...

Machine: I7980X processorMOBO P6X58D premiumVideo Card GTX480X12gb ramFirst,let me explain I am a music major and about medium knowledge with computers...But I decided I wanted something to run FSX "full blast"...It does...I have FPS set at 30 and most of the time it stays at that amount...I have max out all the sliders to the right...I am running PMDG MD-11 with AV6 weather. The flight simulator runs very smooth, and so far no crashes. I am using a fsx.cfg file from ******* Altuve which he recommended some changes in the settings to better improve FSX....Interesting that I pulled up the Windows 7 professional 64 bit version of Taskmaster and was looking at some figures about performance of the processor...Not knowing what I was doing, (Maybe someone can explain all this) I wrote down the following...First I was flying the MD-11 with AV6 weather turned on...It appeared only the last two cores were being used...The windows appeared green almost up to 100%...The highest CPU usage was 16% The highest was 18%Physically memory 19%processes 55 AV6 was using 8 threads with 0%CPU usagesFSX 90 threads with 15 to 18% CPU usagesThe first fsx.cfg file had AffinityMask set at 15 wasn't sure if hypertreading is on or not...(How do you find out) This computer was custom built by Fry's in Vegas, I just bought the parts and etc..I reset the AffinityMask to 255 and it appeared that more Cores came on line..."whatever that means..."I understand that FSX was written back in the days when dual and quad cores weren't available...And, it makes sense to me that only2 of the 6 cores on the I7980X are being used. The other windows on taskmaster either say parked or there was a little movement showing that maybe less than 5% was being used after resetting the AffinityMask to 255. Is there any software or a way to make FSX use the other cores? I really don't understand what "AffinityMask" does? I just read these articles from so called experts, try them and they appear to work, sometime...Bottom line: Any one reading this "mess" might help me figure out if I should just let things go as they are or is there a way to improve the settings to use the other cores...Any help is appreciated...Bob Adams -p.s. I have set FPS to unlimited and it bounces all over the place from 50 to sometimes over 100...Few times I even got 130fps which doesn't make sense to me...

Machine: I7980X processorMOBO P6X58D premiumVideo Card GTX480X12gb ramFirst,let me explain I am a music major and about medium knowledge with computers...But I decided I wanted something to run FSX "full blast"...It does...I have FPS set at 30 and most of the time it stays at that amount...I have max out all the sliders to the right...I am running PMDG MD-11 with AV6 weather. The flight simulator runs very smooth, and so far no crashes. I am using a fsx.cfg file from ******* Altuve which he recommended some changes in the settings to better improve FSX....Interesting that I pulled up the Windows 7 professional 64 bit version of Taskmaster and was looking at some figures about performance of the processor...Not knowing what I was doing, (Maybe someone can explain all this) I wrote down the following...First I was flying the MD-11 with AV6 weather turned on...It appeared only the last two cores were being used...The windows appeared green almost up to 100%...The highest CPU usage was 16% The highest was 18%Physically memory 19%processes 55 AV6 was using 8 threads with 0%CPU usagesFSX 90 threads with 15 to 18% CPU usagesThe first fsx.cfg file had AffinityMask set at 15 wasn't sure if hypertreading is on or not...(How do you find out) This computer was custom built by Fry's in Vegas, I just bought the parts and etc..I reset the AffinityMask to 255 and it appeared that more Cores came on line..."whatever that means..."I understand that FSX was written back in the days when dual and quad cores weren't available...And, it makes sense to me that only2 of the 6 cores on the I7980X are being used. The other windows on taskmaster either say parked or there was a little movement showing that maybe less than 5% was being used after resetting the AffinityMask to 255. Is there any software or a way to make FSX use the other cores? I really don't understand what "AffinityMask" does? I just read these articles from so called experts, try them and they appear to work, sometime...Bottom line: Any one reading this "mess" might help me figure out if I should just let things go as they are or is there a way to improve the settings to use the other cores...Any help is appreciated...Bob Adams -p.s. I have set FPS to unlimited and it bounces all over the place from 50 to sometimes over 100...Few times I even got 130fps which doesn't make sense to me...

I am still hunting bugs with my system. No tweaks as of yet. I removed the UIautomation.dll and so far no more menu crashes. I was getting BSOD, however I reduced my traffic settings and water settings. Whenever I used REX 2.0 I got frequent BSOD. I am running a test 12 hour flight (without REX 2.) and so far so good. Four questions for 980x users:1. I am curious if any other 980x users are having any problems with REX 2.0? I run at full resolution 4096 clouds... 2. Do you find that unlocked or locked FPS seem better. Currently I have mine locked at 20 and am stable so far. 3. Would changing my Affinity Mask make use of my unused cores? 4. Why do the Microsoft engineers claim that oc is an issue? I have read some boards that state oc has several disadvantages in multicore?

So far, so good...Since I wrote my last entered above, I haven't had any problems...I am running of course the setup above with two monitors connected to the GTX480X and using Windows7 professional 64 bit version...I have been researching the Internet attempting to find information about "spanning" the 2 monitors...So far they say with the Nvidia GTX480X card with Windows7 it doesn't allow a way to "span" The Nvidia techs state it's not their fault but the way Microsoft Windows7 coded their program...They say with Windows XP, not sure about Vista this is allowed...It appears to me so far that running around 35FPS setting is better than running unlocked...I set it to "unlimited" and found it was running over 100FPS but would vary around busy airports on VATSIM...At the present time, with the new setup, I haven't been on VATSIM very much and can't report what the results of my FPS might be...I am just saying that at 1 time, it was down below 25FPS which really isn't bad...On your next question, I was watching the performance of all 6 cores of the I7980X when I set the "Affinity Mask" to 255 and noticed that all 6 cores were working compared to not having "Affinity Mask."On your 4th question, I don't know...If you have any more experience since the last post, please reply....Oh, so far I am running either the PMDG MD-11 or the 747-400-8I or the Eaglesoft Citation X...All planes are very stable...plus REX2 and FsCommander 8.6 version on the same computer...I use the 2nd monitor for the maps and etc...Bob Adams

Tonight I became fed up and visited my local Micro Center and purchased an additional 6GB of Corsair Dominator DD3 RAM. Since I had already invested in 6GB of this product prior, I could not purchase in good conscience another 6GB of MUshkin redline and trash my existing memory. So, I have added the memory, and despite what everyone has said, I am having a smoother, faster FSX experience. I kept my overclock(s) the same. Hopefully this solves my blue screens and other memory issues. If so, I can provide a better report once I am stable on my long haul flights. IMHO opinion if you have a number of add ons, I think you will have to invest in serious RAM to support the 980x...

Tonight I became fed up and visited my local Micro Center and purchased an additional 6GB of Corsair Dominator DD3 RAM. Since I had already invested in 6GB of this product prior, I could not purchase in good conscience another 6GB of MUshkin redline and trash my existing memory. So, I have added the memory, and despite what everyone has said, I am having a smoother, faster FSX experience. I kept my overclock(s) the same. Hopefully this solves my blue screens and other memory issues. If so, I can provide a better report once I am stable on my long haul flights. IMHO opinion if you have a number of add ons, I think you will have to invest in serious RAM to support the 980x...

Adding RAM does not solve BSODs. 12GB of RAM has no benefit for FSX over 6GB. Your perceived increase in "smoothness" is simply that, a perception. Your system has deeper underlying issues, likely incorrect settings to support your overclock (wrong voltages) or even faulty hardware (such as bad RAM).

I totally agree with you on 6gb being the maximum available. Fluidity is definitely a perception, how can I explain that it no longer crashes? I even started a new thread under MOBOs, RAM and Hardware about this issue. Some folks are stating that 12gb has solved their problems. This was a last ditch effort after a very frustrating month. I don't know about the overclcok, I will investigate that afte some time, but I can tell you that I ran memtest86 on each individual RAM and no problems. Disabled startup programs, problem contined. Reinsstalled FSX et al and problem continued. Installed 6gb of Corsair Dominator DDR3 RAM and voila no more crashes.

Adding RAM does not solve BSODs. 12GB of RAM has no benefit for FSX over 6GB. Your perceived increase in "smoothness" is simply that, a perception. Your system has deeper underlying issues, likely incorrect settings to support your overclock (wrong voltages) or even faulty hardware (such as bad RAM).

Yep, you are absolutely correct. All of my system issues have returned full force. It was so bad I couldn't run FSX at default settings, and I had FPS locked at 20. System is in the shop, hopefully the guy who built it can find my problems. Until then...

After 56 days after working the above computer, I attempted to awake my computer out of sleep mode and the famous BSOD appeared....Took it took the shop...The problem.....Asus MOBO model P6X58D Premium went bad and it was replaced...So far after 30 days no problem

Hello to everybodyI've a question:I've a corei7 950 clocked at 4.09Ghz air cooled. I'm thinking to take the 980X but i'm not sure if it increases the performance in fsx keeping the same Ghz.Because I don't wanna take the liquid cooling system and I prefer keeping my noctua air cooling, but I' don't know how many Mhz I can grow over 4Ghz with the air cooler. So my question is: Keeping the same Mhz, there will be differences in fsx using 6 cores instead of 4 cores?What's the number to insert in the affinity mask for using the six cores?Thanks a lot

no, six cores won't increase performance over four at the same clocksthe 980 is 32nm though, so it overclocks better, don't expect more than a 10-15% overclock/performance gainthe affinitymask for six cores would be 63

Hello to everybodyI've a question:I've a corei7 950 clocked at 4.09Ghz air cooled. I'm thinking to take the 980X but i'm not sure if it increases the performance in fsx keeping the same Ghz.Because I don't wanna take the liquid cooling system and I prefer keeping my noctua air cooling, but I' don't know how many Mhz I can grow over 4Ghz with the air cooler. So my question is: Keeping the same Mhz, there will be differences in fsx using 6 cores instead of 4 cores?What's the number to insert in the affinity mask for using the six cores?Thanks a lot

thanks for the answer.And with the liquid cooling how much it could be raised? 4.8Ghz is easy o is difficult to reach?

I'm no OC expert, but 4.8 sounds far too optimistic, even on custom water cooling. you would need massive volts and newest 32nm CPUs are very sensitive to high volts (much more than lynnfields) so watch your step thereeven at acceptable temps you can fry a 32nm chip if the volts are too high (there's a review I found where they tried to push an I3 too far and it died at about 1.475Vcore)

thanks for the answer.And with the liquid cooling how much it could be raised? 4.8Ghz is easy o is difficult to reach?

I'm no OC expert, but 4.8 sounds far too optimistic, even on custom water cooling. you would need massive volts and newest 32nm CPUs are very sensitive to high volts (much more than lynnfields) so watch your step thereeven at acceptable temps you can fry a 32nm chip if the volts are too high (there's a review I found where they tried to push an I3 too far and it died at about 1.475Vcore)

I was able to get to 4.2 @ 1.35vto get to 4.5 needed 1.4v4.8 is pushing it to the limit. I'm scared at 1.4v But I must say, there was a very noticeable difference going from 4.2 to 4.5 for some reason.