Hi,I am planning to upgrade my PC form a core 2 duo to a core i5. The question is, for roughly 200USD I could get a core i5-661 or an i5-750, one dual core, other quad. I like the 661 default clock speed and lower power usage, and I'm not sure that a 5 year old app like FSX will efficiently use 4 cores, even with SP2 and acceleration. I might be wrong on this one though.Also, planning to turn off hyper-threading in either case, from my experience with enterprise applications at least, that's not going to help much. Any advice from fellow simmers?...Thanks allStefan Ticusan

I am not getting rid of my Quad Core2 until six cores come out. FSX uses up every CPU resource you have available.

Pardon my lack of knowledge, but I was just thinking about upgrading my CPU, but wondered if it was an easy replacement or not? Will I have to restore my whole computer?

Hi,I am planning to upgrade my PC form a core 2 duo to a core i5. The question is, for roughly 200USD I could get a core i5-661 or an i5-750, one dual core, other quad. I like the 661 default clock speed and lower power usage, and I'm not sure that a 5 year old app like FSX will efficiently use 4 cores, even with SP2 and acceleration. I might be wrong on this one though.Also, planning to turn off hyper-threading in either case, from my experience with enterprise applications at least, that's not going to help much. Any advice from fellow simmers?...

Definitely get the 750 and OC it to ~4GHz with a good cooler. It's going to be far more effective than a dual core would be.

Pardon my lack of knowledge, but I was just thinking about upgrading my CPU, but wondered if it was an easy replacement or not? Will I have to restore my whole computer?

It depends on exactly what you're trying to upgrade to. If it's just a CPU change (which means your motherboard, RAM etc stay in the system) then, there's not much to it - no software changes at all usually. The problem is that most big upgrades in CPU technology also require a new motherboard and RAM. You can't for instance put an i7 into a motherboard that was designed for Core 2 CPUs.Download CPU-Z here http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html and it'll tell you what you have currently and by extension what you can upgrade to.

Go for the quad core. I'm eyeing going from an E6600 to a i5-750/Gigabyte UD3P/G.skill RAM with a Corsair H50 to cool it. Hopefully I'd be able to get to 4.0ghz.

Thanks Ryan!

I have an i7/920 system which I built from scratch and an i5/750 system which is largely an upgrage from an older system. I did the latter for under $500, which included the chip, the board (MSI- a departure from my ASUS allegiance), 6 GB DDR3 ram and a few other doo-dads. Because I had the drives, PS, case and software already set, it was a pretty inexpensive switch.This isn't my FS computer, that's the other one, but I noticed I still had FS2004 on it. I ran it and a CLS 340 add-on that I found on there, and got like 100FPS. Obviously, FSX is more resource intensive, but I get 30+ on the i7 with a lot of addon candy. One thing to look at is the i7/i5/i3 naming scheme, it isn't entirely consistent. The 9 series i7s are 1366, and then the 8s and below are 1156. The i5 7 series is in the same family asthe i7 8s, whereas the i5 6 series are closer to the i3 5 series. Personally, I wouldn't consider anything in the i5s other than the 7 series.

Definitely get the 750 and OC it to ~4GHz with a good cooler. It's going to be far more effective than a dual core would be.It depends on exactly what you're trying to upgrade to. If it's just a CPU change (which means your motherboard, RAM etc stay in the system) then, there's not much to it - no software changes at all usually. The problem is that most big upgrades in CPU technology also require a new motherboard and RAM. You can't for instance put an i7 into a motherboard that was designed for Core 2 CPUs.Download CPU-Z here http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html and it'll tell you what you have currently and by extension what you can upgrade to.

Thank you all for your replies, probably the 750 will be the choice. Do you know when the 32nm quad cores will come up?

The i5-750 (what I have) has the best bang for your buck, it is easy to overclock and in some cases has been proven to be more powerful then a i7-920. I have one and running it with 8gb ddr3 ram and a nvidia 9800gt 1gb gpu and never get below 25FPS in the Carenado C185 over FTX PNW with HDR and REX. For $200, you couldn't ask for more.

Uh you all are out of luck because the cpu socket is completely different. All core 2 products used the LGA-775 while the new socked it either LGA-1156 or LGA-13**. To change you all would need to buy a new motherboard and memory, but when you get to that point it is cheaper to just build a new computer.

I am not getting rid of my Quad Core2 until six cores come out. FSX uses up every CPU resource you have available.

A six core came out about a month ago. That's what I am putting in my new desktop. It's about $1000 at newegg.com...

Uh you all are out of luck because the cpu socket is completely different. All core 2 products used the LGA-775 while the new socked it either LGA-1156 or LGA-13**. To change you all would need to buy a new motherboard and memory, but when you get to that point it is cheaper to just build a new computer.A six core came out about a month ago. That's what I am putting in my new desktop. It's about $1000 at newegg.com...

Steven,That's right, I factored that in. I plan to keep the HD and the video card. Will go for new mobo, 4GB DDR3 memory and one of the i5'sStefan Ticusan

Get the i5 750!!! Like I said, best bang for buck. What is your GPU and for cooling get a Coolmaster V8 :)

Get the i5 750!!! Like I said, best bang for buck. What is your GPU and for cooling get a Coolmaster V8 :)

I have a 8800GT, not quite the newest or best thing around but I'm happy with the performance. I will upgrade eventually the whole $#!@ thing but in stages :)I use a mac as my main PC, so this is a "FSX only" machine so I'm trying to "justify" the expense by spreading it out :)

8800GT probably won't be AS good, if I was you id go for a GTX 275 or even a GTX 470 if you do replace the GPU.

I am not getting rid of my Quad Core2 until six cores come out. FSX uses up every CPU resource you have available.

Time to get rid of it then because it is already out. The Core I7 Extreme 980X. 6 cores and 2 threads per core