Is it possible (via BIOS) to reduce the number of PHYSICAL cores to 3 and (in theory) push it beyond the 5 barrier? or you CAN'T reduce Physical cores? Since I use FSX with 3 cores only (afiinity mask 12) I was thinking the level of performance I would get with a 980X using half its cores, any thoughts?

Well, more cores means more smoothness, so why would you want to reduce it? Also you pay the price of a 980x for the 6cores, why would you want to decrease this? I don't think it is possible anyway.

*******,Windows 7 loves more cores as well as ram.It's better to build a system with the best motherboard available, the best ram (lowest timings), best card (s) (SLI) and 2 SSD drives (ones for OS and one for FSX) than to try to overclock the hell out your CPU. Let me add that a huge case and 1200 watt power supply will help too.You will see higher performance and fps, but at a higher cost. :( As has been established, the entire system needs to be pumped up! Let's not forget tweaks and drivers. FSX is so complicated.

Is it possible (via BIOS) to reduce the number of PHYSICAL cores to 3 and (in theory) push it beyond the 5 barrier? or you CAN'T reduce Physical cores? Since I use FSX with 3 cores only (afiinity mask 12) I was thinking the level of performance I would get with a 980X using half its cores, any thoughts?

I think most of us wish to have your nice 6 core CPU so you want to reduce them to 3!? :( .Anyway if I understand correctly you can do it on your BIOS (for me on Gigabyte X58 series):MB intelligent Tweaks(M.I.T) ---> Advanced CPU features ---> CPU cores enabledBob

The one with the most cores, not GHz, wins but I'm not so sure FSX will utilize all the 6 cores offered with the 980X. Phil Taylor said the industry's move from GHz to cores was a surprise to the whole tech community and the Aces Team did program some of FSX for multicore usage and the team was trying to add more but I think Microsoft shut down FSX before the reprogramming could be completed. More details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2007...od-measure.aspx. Still, I see no reason to shut down 3 cores just because FSX may not fully utilize them.Best regards,Jim

The one with the most cores, not GHz, wins but I'm not so sure FSX will utilize all the 6 cores offered with the 980X. Phil Taylor said the industry's move from GHz to cores was a surprise to the whole tech community and the Aces Team did program some of FSX for multicore usage and the team was trying to add more but I think Microsoft shut down FSX before the reprogramming could be completed. More details here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2007...od-measure.aspx. Still, I see no reason to shut down 3 cores just because FSX may not fully utilize them.Best regards,Jim

This is such a load of B.S. The move to multi-core was known since 2004 at least. We've had multiple threads in consumer processors since November 2002. Last I checked FSX didn't come out until late 2006. That's 2-4 years lead time. Ace's dropped the ball on this one.

+1 about Aces' multicore CYA. I bought a AMD 4200+ X2 in 3Q 2005 when it had been out a few months; by that time 'the writing on the wall' about multicore was old news as far the the industry was concerned. Aces just chose to hear what they wanted to hear. I do remember being very disappointed when the original release of FSX didn't touch that second core; thankfully they were able to rectify the situation (somewhat) with later patches.As for stripping a 980X down to three cores so you can get a 5G OC: it just doesn't work that way. Using a liquid nitrogen cooler might get you there but then you'd be lucky to get in more than a few hours of flight before you'd need another 980X.

I am using fs9 with my system overclocked @4.88 ghz temp @ 46* c with stock heat sink/fan vcore 1.23v and all but 2 cores running (shut down all but 2 cores in bios) ( hyper threading off).Fs9 responded, awsome in each and every condition .So far with these settings I have seen my sim run the best I have ever seen ! It responds much better (heat/preformance) then when I had all 6 cores running! When I had hyper threading on system slows down in the sim.Please read this link good info on 980x and hythreading........http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hyper-...ml#xtor=RSS-182 My SpecsIntel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W overclocked @4.88GHz vcore 1.23stock CPU Cooler ASRock X58 Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard bios 2.60G.SKILL Trident 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Triple Channel Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M160G2XXX 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) For fs9 and OSIntel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2R5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for other stuffEVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR GeForce GTX 285 2GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Creative - Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound CardOCZ 750W SLI/CrossFire Active PFC Power Supply Acer GD235HZbid Black/orange 23.6" 2ms Widescreen 1080p 120Hz 3D-Ready LCD Monitor

I am using fs9 with my system overclocked @4.88 ghz temp @ 46* c with stock heat sink/fan vcore 1.23v and all but 2 cores running (shut down all but 2 cores in bios) ( hyper threading off).Fs9 responded, awsome in each and every condition .So far with these settings I have seen my sim run the best I have ever seen ! It responds much better (heat/preformance) then when I had all 6 cores running! When I had hyper threading on system slows down in the sim.Please read this link good info on 980x and hythreading........http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hyper-...ml#xtor=RSS-182 My SpecsIntel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W overclocked @4.88GHz vcore 1.23stock CPU Cooler ASRock X58 Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard bios 2.60G.SKILL Trident 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Triple Channel Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M160G2XXX 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) For fs9 and OSIntel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2R5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for other stuffEVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR GeForce GTX 285 2GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Creative - Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound CardOCZ 750W SLI/CrossFire Active PFC Power Supply Acer GD235HZbid Black/orange 23.6" 2ms Widescreen 1080p 120Hz 3D-Ready LCD Monitor

I would expect your system to devour FS9. If you upgraded to a GTX 480, you would be able to run FSX nearly maxed out with your system.

I would expect your system to devour FS9. If you upgraded to a GTX 480, you would be able to run FSX nearly maxed out with your system.

The fact was, when I first ran fs9 and a couple of detailed addons ,fs9 was slow on this set up. So at that point I looked for a cure. First I found out what hyper threading did to the 980x so I turned it off. To my surprise the sim increased by about 30% then compared to on. Then Bob scott had an idea to turn off all but two cores. He did some tests and it showed to really improve perfomance.So then I also did and found not only did my system run better in the sim ,it also allowed me to beable to go higher in clock settings and able to lower vcore voltage to get it to that point. To be honest I am waiting to see if bob scott has tired to run his sim with less cores and using fsx? Also ,heat output decreased from my cpu with hyper threading off. Now ,for about a week now @ 4.88 ghz with no issues at all, my sim is like instant in all conditions. No, waiting on textures or scenery. Even at KJFK(by FSDT) in captain sim 757 with 100% traffic (I have every WOA package installed) there are no I mean there is no lag at all. I can even fly through that scenery going 600 knots and with everything appearing just like if it was just a movie. If you really think about it most pen4 @3.0 ghz cpu's that were only 1 core ran fs9 ok.My SpecsIntel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W overclocked @4.88GHz vcore 1.23stock CPU Cooler ASRock X58 Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard bios 2.60G.SKILL Trident 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Triple Channel Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M160G2XXX 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) For fs9 and OSIntel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2R5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for other stuffEVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR GeForce GTX 285 2GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Creative - Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound CardOCZ 750W SLI/CrossFire Active PFC Power Supply Acer GD235HZbid Black/orange 23.6" 2ms Widescreen 1080p 120Hz 3D-Ready LCD Monitor

The fact was, when I first ran fs9 and a couple of detailed addons ,fs9 was slow on this set up. So at that point I looked for a cure. First I found out what hyper threading did to the 980x so I turned it off. To my surprise the sim increased by about 30% then compared to on. Then Bob scott had an idea to turn off all but two cores. He did some tests and it showed to really improve perfomance.So then I also did and found not only did my system run better in the sim ,it also allowed me to beable to go higher in clock settings and able to lower vcore voltage to get it to that point. To be honest I am waiting to see if bob scott has tired to run his sim with less cores and using fsx? Also ,heat output decreased from my cpu with hyper threading off. Now ,for about a week now @ 4.88 ghz with no issues at all, my sim is like instant in all conditions. No, waiting on textures or scenery. Even at KJFK(by FSDT) in captain sim 757 with 100% traffic (I have every WOA package installed) there are no I mean there is no lag at all. I can even fly through that scenery going 600 knots and with everything appearing just like if it was just a movie. If you really think about it most pen4 @3.0 ghz cpu's that were only 1 core ran fs9 ok.My SpecsIntel Core i7-980X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.33GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W overclocked @4.88GHz vcore 1.23stock CPU Cooler ASRock X58 Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 ATX Intel Motherboard bios 2.60G.SKILL Trident 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000 (PC3 16000) Triple Channel Intel X25-M Mainstream SSDSA2M160G2XXX 2.5" 160GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) For fs9 and OSIntel X25-V SSDSA2MP040G2R5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for other stuffEVGA 02G-P3-1185-AR GeForce GTX 285 2GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Creative - Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer Sound CardOCZ 750W SLI/CrossFire Active PFC Power Supply Acer GD235HZbid Black/orange 23.6" 2ms Widescreen 1080p 120Hz 3D-Ready LCD Monitor

Are you disabling via the BIOS? I use an affinitymask of 14 to set FSX to run on 3 cores, and I have all my fsx related apps running on core0 with the OS. My i7 920 is @ 4.4Ghz with no HT. This makes me curious about disabling the first 2 cores and trying to run at 4.6 to 4.8Ghz.

Are you disabling via the BIOS? I use an affinitymask of 14 to set FSX to run on 3 cores, and I have all my fsx related apps running on core0 with the OS. My i7 920 is @ 4.4Ghz with no HT. This makes me curious about disabling the first 2 cores and trying to run at 4.6 to 4.8Ghz.

Yes, in bios just enable 2 cores.It is found under cpu config .By default it showed all cores enabled.

Yes, in bios just enable 2 cores.It is found under cpu config .By default it showed all cores enabled.

I'm skeptical thought that reducing my computer to 2 cores would actually benefit FSX as it can take advantage of all 4 cores.

I'm skeptical thought that reducing my computer to 2 cores would actually benefit FSX as it can take advantage of all 4 cores.

I cannot answer that right now. I am waiting until, to get another ssd to install fsx and os only. That's why I am hoping bob scott is reading this post and if he has tired any of these settings with fsx.....

I'm skeptical thought that reducing my computer to 2 cores would actually benefit FSX as it can take advantage of all 4 cores.

FSX runs on a single core. All the cores do is load scenery.For FSX to be truly multi-core, ACES would have had to completely re-write the FSX engine.They were supposed to do this for FSXI, together with multi-GPU. Sigh.Cheers,- jahman.