hello all,i am currently running on an AMD Phenom 9500 2.2 quad core cpu but i would like to upgrade. I was wondering what would be better for me to upgrade to, the Phenom II X2 555(i would overclock to 3.6-3.8 dual core, no unlocking extra cores) or an Athlon II X4 635 2.9 quad core(no oc)? I would be playing FSX for my flight simulator choice but do keep in mind i play many other games aswell(just cause 2, starcraft II, mw2 etc). I have a new GTX 460 graphics card, 4gb of ddr2 RAM, and 2x 320gb hdd so the only thing i really need(want) to upgrade is my processor. As for FSX i love my ai traffic and must have it at 100% :Big Grin:

So let me guess, in order to play 100% ai, you have every other slider turnedright down and run it on min settings?

is your board AM2 or AM2+?

i would like to play on medium(ish) settings. I do have a am3/am2+ board(gigabyte 785g...highly rated/reviewed one, forgot model). I dropped an ahtlon II X4 635 2.9 quad in to it without any bios updates at all(tested it while i waiting for other parts on a client build). The 635 gave amazing performance at $99, but would the phenom II 555 be a better choice?

I'm not sure. the phenom core is faster, but has only two of them. if you can stretch to a Phenom II X4 925 you have the best of both worlds (just about 20 extra $)

Would you see the same performance in other games with a 3.8 dual core w/ l3 cache and a 2.9 quad core with 2mb of l2 cache? and which would be better for fsx?

for gaming in general it's better to have more than 2 cores (even though core speed is the most important thing), especially if you are playing the upcoming titles as those will probably be coded to take advantage of multiple cores. (many games already do)4 cores are enough for now (3 for FSX)but then again, a 3.8GHz P2 x2 will be a fair bit faster than a 635I asked about the CPU cache thing in another site and I was told that's not much of a factorbut why can't you overclock the 635? or even the Phenom II X4 925, or it's out of your budget?

i would only oc the 635 to 3.2 ghz so it wouldnt be that much of a difference. Right now my cpu is bottle necking my performance so either one i will be an upgrade. Do you think that the dual core would give a notable performance increase over the quad in fsx?(since it doesnt, as far as i know, use all 4 cores and is cpu based)

not a huge difference but I would say a 3.8GHz phenom will be faster in FSX. As for other games I don't knowhow about an OCed Phenom X3? or those are your only two options?

they arent my only two options but they are the only 2 im interested in. Considering i am building a new rig with the 1050t most likely at the end of this year and this will just become a normal home computer, i will go with phenom II dual core. Thanks for all your help dazz and btw im jealous of your rig :Nerd:

well, I'm selling the CPU , motherboard and video card you see there I'm switching to an I5 750 platform. better for FSX