Now that I have a new i7 980x extreme addition and installed fs9. To my surprise fs9 really didn't run much better then when I had my i7 960 .After, doing some tweaks and still not seening a big differance in performance, I started feel like I just wasted a thousand dollars so I read up on gaming systems at toms hardware.I found out that turning off hyper threading increased performance. So I gave it a try .Now I can see my system fly in fs9 like never before. So if you have not tried to turn off hyper threading this may be the trick that will help out you and your fs9 performance.

*WARNING!*Turning off hyperthreading can cause significant performance issues in other aspects that probably haven't been mentioned. Most background tasks performed by your OS are optimal when the system supports multiple cores and hyperthreading. I've seen people do this for years, and sooner or later... it comes back to bite them.If your system's running slow with hyperthreading on... you have something interferring with your system's performance and killing hyperthreading isn't a good solution. It's like taking out an entire wall just because the window's dirty.

*WARNING!*Turning off hyperthreading can cause significant performance issues in other aspects that probably haven't been mentioned. Most background tasks performed by your OS are optimal when the system supports multiple cores and hyperthreading. I've seen people do this for years, and sooner or later... it comes back to bite them.If your system's running slow with hyperthreading on... you have something interferring with your system's performance and killing hyperthreading isn't a good solution. It's like taking out an entire wall just because the window's dirty.

I am using xp pro with sp3.

Won't make a difference. Honest.System stability can become an issue, especially as time passes. The more software you run, things happening in the background, etc. There is most definitely an impact for reducing the threading capability of your CPU, though you might not see it yet.I just wanted to be certain you knew that there's a price to pay for your choice. :(

how much of a difference would you expect between an i7 960 and an i7 980?

how much of a difference would you expect between an i7 960 and an i7 980?

Well it was more like the performance actually dropped off when I installed the 980x thats why I looked for a solution .Toms hardware states"Preliminary testing at our lowest resolution, pairing the most powerful graphics card with a 3.8 GHz overclocked Core i7-920, determined HTT (Hyper-Threading Technology) provided no benefit in the series' current 3D game suite. Disabling HTT, however, reduced load temperatures by a good 12 degrees Celsius, allowing us to then push the processor to 4.0 GHz and still maintain lower temperatures."

Won't make a difference. Honest.System stability can become an issue, especially as time passes. The more software you run, things happening in the background, etc. There is most definitely an impact for reducing the threading capability of your CPU, though you might not see it yet.I just wanted to be certain you knew that there's a price to pay for your choice. :(

Can't say I agree with this...were it true, I shouldn't be able to run Windows very well at all on my X6800 dual core with HT off (I can and have for some time). The Lynnfield (i5) CPU with four cores and no hyperthreading capability on the chip also runs Windows just fine.I have to drop the best overclock for a given Vcc voltage on my 975 by 1-2 notches on the clock mult (133-266MHz) if I turn HT on. I believe the performance hit from the slower clock is considerably larger than whatever minimal impact arises from a few OS processes being constrained to four versus eight (very fast) virtual processors.If we were running a massively multi-threaded application, like some of the audio/video processing software out there, I might expect a reduction in virtual processors causing noticeable performance degradation. But if the performance hit is not noticeable in the environment in question (and in my experimentation with FSX and HT off it is not) then IMHO the impact is not "significant."RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Well it was more like the performance actually dropped off when I installed the 980x thats why I looked for a solution .Toms hardware states"Preliminary testing at our lowest resolution, pairing the most powerful graphics card with a 3.8 GHz overclocked Core i7-920, determined HTT (Hyper-Threading Technology) provided no benefit in the series' current 3D game suite. Disabling HTT, however, reduced load temperatures by a good 12 degrees Celsius, allowing us to then push the processor to 4.0 GHz and still maintain lower temperatures."

And thus the 'crux' of the actual issue arises.... wanting to overclock. Hyperthreading provides no benefit to a game that doesn't use threading, which most games don't. Not exactly a realistic test or discussion. FSX uses threads if you let it... when it's loading from the hard drive.My base impression is... you're looking for 'tweak this, tweak that' without really understanding how and why your system performs as it does. Amusing to me... as I've never, ever overclocked a system to get performance. There are better ways, but it requires you actually know how hardware and software interact at the most basic, core level.

And thus the 'crux' of the actual issue arises.... wanting to overclock. Hyperthreading provides no benefit to a game that doesn't use threading, which most games don't. Not exactly a realistic test or discussion. FSX uses threads if you let it... when it's loading from the hard drive.My base impression is... you're looking for 'tweak this, tweak that' without really understanding how and why your system performs as it does. Amusing to me... as I've never, ever overclocked a system to get performance. There are better ways, but it requires you actually know how hardware and software interact at the most basic, core level.

Ed...are you suggesting that overclocking a system can't increase performance in FS9? That there's some Zenlike way of establishing software harmony to make a stock i7-920 running at 2.66GHz perform just as well in FS as an overclocked 920 running at 4GHz? I'm sure I must be reading that wrong.acmech--performance of the 980 vs the 960 in FS9 is mostly going to be a function of CPU clock speed and memory bandwidth, since FS9 will only run on one CPU. I don't have a 980 to play with here, but I have to wonder if you were to shut down three or four cores in the BIOS if you couldn't get your overclock up quite a bit higher. The 980 is a 32 nm CPU (versus the 45 nm 960), which should lower the power requirements (and heat) per core, but the additional cores and support circuitry would appear to add most of that back in. If you disable cores that aren't being used...say leave CPU0 for the OS and background processes, and CPU1 for FS9, and turn off CPU2-CPU5, you might be able to get that CPU running stable in the high 4GHz range. But you'd need some really good memory to keep up, otherwise the CPU is just going to start throwing in idle clock cycles while it waits for memory fetches.Honestly, though, I'd expect the real perf benefits to be apparent in FSX, where the additional cores can help. Even there, though, I would experiment with two cores shut down to get the clock up a bit.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Bob,I am sure you already know that the i7 980x has 6 cores not just four. So are you saying, I should shut down five cores and leave 1 for fs9 ?To be honest with hyper threading turned off, I have been having the best running sim I have ever owned. I have spent the last couple of hours without any problems as in ctd or loss of any sort.My cpu(over clocked to 3.7 ghz with temps running around 41c*- 54*c and my 285 gtx 2gb is running around 50-57*c under loads.I have triple channel G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) . The hard drive is a Intel SSD 160 gb the same as yours.Thanks for being a helpful person :( there needs to be more people like you out there....please read this linkhttp://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hyper-...ml#xtor=RSS-182

i just placed an order for an Alienware desktop w/ the i7 980 chip. Should I be worried about running FS9 on it? It'll also have 2 Nvidia GTX 290 in SLI mode. I know FS9 doesn't take advantage of SLI, but i was hoping the faster CPU will speed it up...Tho at the end of the day, i bought this machine for the next generation of PC games (my current PC can't keep up w/ Metro 2033, Assassin's Creed 2, etc. anymore. I need 60+ fps at 2560x1200!...lol). But hopefully i won't run into problems w/ FS9. I'll keep my eye on this thread tho...thanks for the info-feng

Taking a multi-core processor and turning it into a single core processor makes absolutely no sense. Why?FS9 has always run extremely well on my old Pentium 4 system. I always used FS9 with all sliders to the right and got excellent performance and frame rates (40+).The fact you're having to effectively butcher a much more powerful CPU to obtain that which I've had for many years makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.Clearly there's something about your system that isn't set up correctly, FS9 just isn't that heavy a load.

Well it was more like the performance actually dropped off when I installed the 980x thats why I looked for a solution .Toms hardware states"Preliminary testing at our lowest resolution, pairing the most powerful graphics card with a 3.8 GHz overclocked Core i7-920, determined HTT (Hyper-Threading Technology) provided no benefit in the series' current 3D game suite. Disabling HTT, however, reduced load temperatures by a good 12 degrees Celsius, allowing us to then push the processor to 4.0 GHz and still maintain lower temperatures."

Hi! This sounds like you just pulled out the 960 and dropped in the 980X. That could be the problem right there. I was thinking of doing the same thing back in the day when I owned a P4 2.6 and upgraded to a 3.0EE. I was warned not to just "drop it in". Do a complete reformat.

Bob,I am sure you already know that the i7 980x has 6 cores not just four. So are you saying, I should shut down five cores and leave 1 for fs9 ?To be honest with hyper threading turned off, I have been having the best running sim I have ever owned. I have spent the last couple of hours without any problems as in ctd or loss of any sort.My cpu(over clocked to 3.7 ghz with temps running around 41c*- 54*c and my 285 gtx 2gb is running around 50-57*c under loads.I have triple channel G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) . The hard drive is a Intel SSD 160 gb the same as yours.Thanks for being a helpful person :( there needs to be more people like you out there....please read this linkhttp://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hyper-...ml#xtor=RSS-182

No, I'd experiment, though, with making it a dual or maybe triple-core when running FS9. Since FS9 can only run on a single core at any point in time, if you have one on for OS and other peripheral processes, one for FS9, and as a result can get your CPU to 4.8GHz, that's going to give you some performance edge over a 960. If you run the 980 at the same clock speed as a 960, there won't be a performance increase. IOW, that 960 could do just as well in FS9 as the 980 if you run them at the same speeds. So to get your $1,000 worth out of the 980, the trick is to get it ticking much faster than the 960, which it may not be able to do with all six cores running.That said, either CPU at 3.7GHz should give you a nice FS9 experience. With my 975 at stock speed (3.4 GHz) I see FS9 frame rates in the high 20s with it loaded to the gills--FSDT KJFK in the PMDG 747, with clouds, rain and 100% AI (MyTraffic v5). With the 975 at 4.4GHz, that goes up to the high 40s, which in FS9 is a fair bit smoother.CheersBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Hi! This sounds like you just pulled out the 960 and dropped in the 980X. That could be the problem right there. I was thinking of doing the same thing back in the day when I owned a P4 2.6 and upgraded to a 3.0EE. I was warned not to just "drop it in". Do a complete reformat.

No. I did a complete format and I had to update my bios just to install the cpu onto the mother board.......I have over clocked the system to 4.5 ghz and it runs stable .Fs9 is running faster more detailed in all condition with no waiting on loading of textures then on any other cpu I have ever used.Screen res 1920 x 1080.