Hey guys,Planning to upgrade my PC, and am having difficulty choosing between these 2 options, which do you think is better for FSX? CPU Intel i7 950RAM 6GB kit Team xtreme 1333mhz ddr3MB Asus Rampage 3 formulaorCPU Intel i7 655kRAM 4GB kit G.skill 1333mhz ddr3MB Asus Sabertooth 55iThanks very much Guys!

Wait a few days; Sandy Bridge is about to release.

Wait a few days; Sandy Bridge is about to release.

Hi,I was thinking, is it worth the wait? I mean my budget for RAM, CPU and MOBO is about $700 Australian dollars. Would Sandy Bridge be that much better than i7-950? -especially with some of them not being overclockable?

Hi,I was thinking, is it worth the wait? I mean my budget for RAM, CPU and MOBO is about $700 Australian dollars. Would Sandy Bridge be that much better than i7-950? -especially with some of them not being overclockable?

Well I can't tell you what it will be like in Australian dollars, but the i5-2500k is expected to be cheaper than the i7-950 here in the US. Without a doubt, wait!!! Even if it's a little more, I would still suggest the new Sandy Bridge processors. If you're going to overclock, the i5-2500k and i7-2600k are your only choice... and if prices are anything like they're expected to be in the US, it would be a shame not to fork out the extra cash for the k processors.

You're not going to get a decent machine for $700 AUD. My system used to be this:i7 950 @4GHz6GB DDR3 Mushkin Redline C6eVGA GTX480Asus P6X58D PremiumCoolermaster HAF 932Corsair HX8501x 120GB Corsair Force SSD1x 2TB WD caviar blackThis was a decent machine and it cost me around $2500 AUD. So for $700 your looking at a cheap i3 or dual core i5 with 4GB 1333MHz ram, GTS250 or something. Won't be anything great. Computer component prices in Aus are phenomenally high compared to the USA, even with the exchange rate being approximately $1I saw a Acer prebuilt in officeworks a month ago that had an i5 650, 8GBy DDR3 1333Mhz, 1TB HD, nVidia GT320 graphics for $1100. That didn't include monitor or anything. So for $700, your options aren't great...

Well I can't tell you what it will be like in Australian dollars, but the i5-2500k is expected to be cheaper than the i7-950 here in the US. Without a doubt, wait!!! Even if it's a little more, I would still suggest the new Sandy Bridge processors. If you're going to overclock, the i5-2500k and i7-2600k are your only choice... and if prices are anything like they're expected to be in the US, it would be a shame not to fork out the extra cash for the k processors.

Hmnn I might just do that, hopefully its not too long.... I just want whats best for flight sim! - thanks for the help

You're not going to get a decent machine for $700 AUD. My system used to be this:i7 950 @4GHz6GB DDR3 Mushkin Redline C6eVGA GTX480Asus P6X58D PremiumCoolermaster HAF 932Corsair HX8501x 120GB Corsair Force SSD1x 2TB WD caviar blackThis was a decent machine and it cost me around $2500 AUD. So for $700 your looking at a cheap i3 or dual core i5 with 4GB 1333MHz ram, GTS250 or something. Won't be anything great. Computer component prices in Aus are phenomenally high compared to the USA, even with the exchange rate being approximately $1I saw a Acer prebuilt in officeworks a month ago that had an i5 650, 8GBy DDR3 1333Mhz, 1TB HD, nVidia GT320 graphics for $1100. That didn't include monitor or anything. So for $700, your options aren't great...

Ahh yeah, i know, the $700 is just for a cpu, motherboard and RAM... not the whole system ( as i mentioned earlier, you may have missed it)

Sorry my mistake. Missed that part. In that case you're looking pretty good. An i7 950 is about $350, a decent 1366 board is about $300, and you can pick up mushkin ram for about $200, so that's a little over budget, but if you went the 1156 route, it'd be cheaper, and sandy bridge is also said to be cheaper.

As already said: It's better to wait the sandy bridge, then to wait any benchmark on FSX with it!

As already said: It's better to wait the sandy bridge, then to wait any benchmark on FSX with it!

Too bad nobody benches with FSX. I might include it in my testing suite for CPUs, but it's a lot of work for little return. This community is the only one I visit which cares about FSX, so taking the several hours to set up my test rig for FSX benching and then benching a wide variety of settings across multiple platforms isn't the funnest thing in the world.

Too bad nobody benches with FSX. I might include it in my testing suite for CPUs, but it's a lot of work for little return. This community is the only one I visit which cares about FSX, so taking the several hours to set up my test rig for FSX benching and then benching a wide variety of settings across multiple platforms isn't the funnest thing in the world.

I'd be perfectly happy to hear your general experience with a 4.5GHz overclock, high FSX settings, AI aircraft, 3rd party aircraft (PMDG 747 for example!), and REX. I agree that it's almost impossible to get too scientific with FSX, so if you can confirm that performance seems to be good with the new chips, that would be a good start. Fly into London Heathrow and tell us avg and minimum FPS, for example.