Hi all,Today my trusty E8500 o/c'd at 3.8 GHz, gave up the ghost. I decided that now is a good time to upgrade to an I7 system. I am thinking of getting an i7 930 @ 2.8GHz; 4.8GT/s LGA1366, 8MB Cashe.This would be coupled with DDR 6GB PC1600 TRI Corsair (3X2GB Modules) memory.All this would then run with my existing graphics card (Nvidia GeForce GTX 260 with 896Mb DDR3), a 650watt power supply and 500GB HardDrive (I forget the brand, but it runs at 7500Rpm). As far as mother boards go I know I like Gigabyte because of their ease of overclocking but don't know what model yet; just know I want onboard sound and lots of USB ports. I am open to suggestions.I will also be re-using the liquid cooling setup from my dead machine. I am seeking opinions as to how well this combination might run FSX. Should I expect much if any improvement over my dead system? Is there a better combination of components for the money I expect to spend? (Aproximately US $700.00). I suspect that the i7 extreme is the best way to go but the truth is I would be hard pressed to justify the cost to my other half.Thanks in advance.

Read my specs in Siggy. My Gigabyte Mobo is excellent and makes OC a breeze it it also has the facility to make copies of the bios in the bios itself so you can try different settings and keep them very useful for getting to know your machines abilities. Make sure that you get yourself an I7 that will take a 4GHZ overclock and run your memory at 1600 (which is the speed mine runs at) and you won't be dissapointed. I came from an E8500 many moons ago and have never regretted the upgrade.Good luck with your hunt.

I made the switch this past April from an E8600 (o/c'd to 4.44 ghz) and a GTX 260 to the I7 930 (now o/c'd to 4.2) now paired with a GTX 480 Fermi card. Even with the 260 gtx (which I had kept for about 2 months after the new build) I saw a phenomenal improvement in FPS and buttery smooth display. The e8600 was a higher ghz o/c, but clock speeds being equal,the quad core 930 trumps the dual core 8600. Loading times seemed like they were cut in half!See my signature, everyone in the know in FSX land recommends an ASUS motherboard (p6T Deluxe V2,rampage II, or p6x58d-e like mine) The p6x58d-e i have is the same as the p6x58d but without a reset button on the board, slightly different heatpipe design, and just one instead of dual gigabyte ethernet, and it's $60 cheaper. Not to mention it has built in support for future technologies like SATA 6gb (which my new 1tb 64mb cache WD Caviar drive uses) and USB 3.0. These are not crucial upgrades by any means, but these features can help you decide among the ASUS offerings. I even considered a more expensive I7 960, but folks told me it would be a waste of $ if are comfortable with overclocking. I got my 930 at Microcenter for $199 and o/c to a stable 4.2 ghz, which I can imagine I would get the same results with the other non extreme I7's albeit I have saved quite of bit of money in the process!Anyways, I think you will be happy with the move to I7, just be sure to also get quality high speed 1600 DDR3 memory with low timings (I recommend Mushkin)Also, if you plan to o/c check out the link below with some suggestions from guru NickN on overclocking the I7:http://205.252.250.26/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1263037900/0

Gigabyte EX58-UD5 is a great bord for overclocking i7s. Highly recommended. I'm not sure about the price of that one these days compared to the other main competetors on the market tho. Also make sure you get adequate cooling. This one from Noctua is currently the most powerful air cooler, with performance just below water. Actually its better than cheap water coolers. Oh, get the 920 or the 930, the only real reason to get an extreme edition is if you want to go for overclocking world records using extreme cooling like liquid nitrogen. On normal cooling extreme edition and cheaper chips reach about the same level when it comes to overclocking

Extreme chips are unlocked for much easier overclocking, I believe there is just one parameter to adjust, whereas with non extremes you have to find the right balance among a few other parameters. So you are basically paying a huge markup for convenience.

Thank you all, I am no guru, but I definately intend to overclock to at least 4GHz. I only hope that the i7 930 will not be more complicated than the e8500 that I had before.

Thank you all, I am no guru, but I definately intend to overclock to at least 4GHz. I only hope that the i7 930 will not be more complicated than the e8500 that I had before.

On my Gigabyte board automatic overclocking is included in a package called Easy Tune which runs in Windows, one click, a restart and a bios save on the mobo and I was running at 4.16GHZ, haven't touched it since. So it can be easy if you choose your components carefully. BTW I use the stock cooler but that may not work with all I7 CPUs.

On my Gigabyte board automatic overclocking is included in a package called Easy Tune which runs in Windows, one click, a restart and a bios save on the mobo and I was running at 4.16GHZ, haven't touched it since. So it can be easy if you choose your components carefully. BTW I use the stock cooler but that may not work with all I7 CPUs.

Hey John,Which Gigabyte board are you using as there are several variations of the EX-58A namely the UD3R, UD5, Ud7 even an UD9.Thanks,Alex

Hey John,Which Gigabyte board are you using as there are several variations of the EX-58A namely the UD3R, UD5, Ud7 even an UD9.Thanks,Alex

Hi Alex, My Mobo is a Gigabyte EX58-UD5. BTW it is the most satisfactory mobo I have ever owned and I started fooling around with mocrocomputers in 1978 so I have had a few. There may be other mobos that are just as good but I can only comment on what I have used. I know that the Gigabyte Easytune software is available for other good Gigabyte mobos as well. Good luck with your choices.