I know this has probably been beaten to death, but I was wondering now that prices have dropped considerably on the Quads, if it would be better for me to upgrade to the Q9650 from my trust old E8400? I have been running the E8400 for almost 2 years at 4GHz and it is rock solid. But seeing how FSX benefits from the additional cores, I wonder if it would be better, especially since it has gone down in price.My current setup is:DFI LP UT P35 T2R moboE8400 @ 4GHzEVGA nVidia GTX280OCZ Flex 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2WD VelociRaptor 150GB 10K RPM HDDWindows 7 UltimateFSXAny help would be greatly appreciated.

Assuming you are able to achieve the same clockspeed with the quad (likely), you won't see any increase in average FPS but the minimum FPS should come up and textures will load faster, reducing or eliminating "the blurries".

But seeing how FSX benefits from the additional cores

In what ways (other than possible blurry reduction)?

Assuming you are able to achieve the same clockspeed with the quad (likely), you won't see any increase in average FPS but the minimum FPS should come up and textures will load faster, reducing or eliminating "the blurries".

Hi TechguyMaxC, thanks for your response...Ok, like I said, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to achieve the same clock speed on the Q9650. This mobo is very good at overclocking and my E8400 has been rock solid for almost 2 years. If by going to the Q9650 helps me with the blurries and especially the stutters while turning, I think it would be a good investment. The micro-stuttering is something that really takes away from the simming experience. I have my system tweaked with the help of NickN's tutorials but I just think that my E8400 is simply not up to the task as far as it goes with FSX. It is a great gaming CPU, don't get me wrong, especially at that clock speed. But FSX I guess really does benefit from the 4 cores.

You should be able to hit the same clockspeed but there are no guarantees when overclocking. I have a Q9550 @ 4GHz which replaced an E8400 @ 4GHz (relegated to backup duty).

You should be able to hit the same clockspeed but there are no guarantees when overclocking. I have a Q9550 @ 4GHz which replaced an E8400 @ 4GHz (relegated to backup duty).

Wow, so you basically were in my situation. How was your experience when moving to the Quad from the E8400? Was it worth it? Running at the same clock speeds, do you feel the Quad is much faster in FSX and overall computer usage?

The quad is smoother, no appreciable FPS difference, but I suspect this is due to MSFS's low FPS sample rate rather than any lack of actual increase in FPS. I definitely recommend the upgrade, especially if you use your PC for more than just MSFS. Video encoding got a real kick in the pants, as did multi-tasking under heavy CPU load.

Hmm, your thread here got me convinced. If, contrary to my previous beliefs, a quad will improve FSX performance, even slightly, I

Hmm, your thread here got me convinced. If, contrary to my previous beliefs, a quad will improve FSX performance, even slightly, I

It

And it hasn