Hey guys!I´ll be traveling to NY in about a month, and I plan on buying a Core2Quad Q9550, since my old Core2Duo E6400 has given up on me, it just can´t run stable @3.2Ghz anymore, so I have to use it Stock, which is unacceptable for FSX and todays addons. For those of you that are going to tell me to upgrade to the newer i7 technology, I won´t do it this year, I plan on doing so next year around holidays, I want all these newer technologies to be stable and standard, like USB3.0, newer Sata, newer videocards, etc, etc, so my only option is staying on my LGA775 socket.So, considering the above, would you say the Q9550 can handle FSX plus complex addons like PMDG, etc well? I really want a nice Rig for at least a year, and I think for 775 this is one of my best options. I´m not considering the Q9650, it seems much more expensive for what it is, and since I plan on OCing the CPU, I don´t think that difference would be worth it, don´t you agree?Thanks guys, waiting for your opinions

Hey guys!I´ll be traveling to NY in about a month, and I plan on buying a Core2Quad Q9550, since my old Core2Duo E6400 has given up on me, it just can´t run stable @3.2Ghz anymore, so I have to use it Stock, which is unacceptable for FSX and todays addons. For those of you that are going to tell me to upgrade to the newer i7 technology, I won´t do it this year, I plan on doing so next year around holidays, I want all these newer technologies to be stable and standard, like USB3.0, newer Sata, newer videocards, etc, etc, so my only option is staying on my LGA775 socket.So, considering the above, would you say the Q9550 can handle FSX plus complex addons like PMDG, etc well? I really want a nice Rig for at least a year, and I think for 775 this is one of my best options. I´m not considering the Q9650, it seems much more expensive for what it is, and since I plan on OCing the CPU, I don´t think that difference would be worth it, don´t you agree?Thanks guys, waiting for your opinions

A Q9550 would do the trick but the E8600 costs $50 less, has a higher stock clock (3.33GHz) and should overclock higher than you could achieve with a Q9550, perhaps even over 4GHz. The Quad would be quicker at loading things up in FSX but in my testing, once you are chugging along, it uses about 1.8 cores average processing power so a dual core actually does a good enough job for this title. Also, the greater likely overclockability of the dual core will yield you extra FPS in any case.

Hmmmm I see... The point is Quad Core is the future, actually, the future is 6 cores, even 8!! X-Plane 10 is gonna make a huge use of as many cores as you can possibly have, the same for the yet to be released MS Flight I bet, so I don´t think it´s worth investing my money on something with such a short life. It´s Quad core or nothing for me now! But thanks for your input! I have completely undestand your point, and if I were not into gaming and other simulators, I probably would head that way

Hmmmm I see... The point is Quad Core is the future, actually, the future is 6 cores, even 8!! X-Plane 10 is gonna make a huge use of as many cores as you can possibly have, the same for the yet to be released MS Flight I bet, so I don´t think it´s worth investing my money on something with such a short life. It´s Quad core or nothing for me now! But thanks for your input! I have completely undestand your point, and if I were not into gaming and other simulators, I probably would head that way

Well you said you were looking at upgrading your whole system next year so there is no need to look too far in the future with this CPU upgrade. I've had a Quad core for three years now. It didn't majorly change my world when I got it, it doesn't now and I doubt it will in a year's time. I still recommend a fast dual core for your one year time frame: cheaper, overclocks higher = greater overall FSX performance.