... You need at least 4 - or better yet - 4.2, a high-end gpu such as your 470, and a cooling method. ...

Well, a megahertz doesnt yield the same performance from cpu architecture to architecture. A c2q is on average about 25% slower per clock cycle than nehalem processors, probably even a bit slower than the new Sandy Bridge ones. And its not going to be easy to make a c2q run at 4.2ghz, not for a 24/7 setup anyways.I also agree about it being a bad idea to tell somebody who says that he's not tech savvy to overclock. You really need to know what youre doing when you OC to minimize risks of doing damage and reduce lifespan more than necessary. For example, leaving voltages on auto while overclocking is a sure way of drastically reducing the lifespan.

Thanks for stepping back in, Dolph. The lad needs constructive help, and probably some guidance, and it's not good if we're fighting over our personal likes and dislikes, and the pros and cons of overclocking. Here's what many of us recommend as the bible for setting up FSX, as well as the nVidia Inspector download site.http://www.simforums.com/forums/fsx-and-nhancer-settings-for-new-drivers-updated_topic36586.htmlhttp://downloads.guru3d.com/NVIDIA-Inspector-1.92-download-2612.htmlOnce this is all digested, then I suggest come back here and do some digging vis-a-vis Bojote's 'fixes' and his auto-tweaker website.Cheers,

Absolutely. Wouldn't have it any other way. I don't know how many times this site saved me time and money by just lurking around and reading other posts of this problem and that. I owe something. Vagrante, if you really want to make sure it isn't Windows getting your speed down, you could visit http://www.blackviper.com/ and learn about all the glorious service doodads running in the background. He presents a complete listing and recommendations of whether to leave the service alone or if its safe to turn it off. I have used this site and my system is as responsive as it can be thanks to those tweaks. I can't say for sure if I gained more than a frame or two but I have tweaked my Windows 7 as lean as it can be and still be functional on my home network and, of course, tuned down for FSX to reap the most of my CPU.Alternately, if you look in the forums, there is some guy or company that, for a fee, will tune your system to its peak for FSX. Somebody can probably chime in on that site hopefully. L8r.

I'll say it again....JETLINE SYSTEMS! They build the best Flight Simulator computer known to man. I've never looked back. Just incredible.

Please post which motherboard exactly you have. There are zillions of threads on internet about specific combinations, that could be of some help to ever start overclocking.But basically, to get FSX running at some decent speeds, you need to do following:- overclock CPU to 3.6+, as already mentioned, best would be over 4g- set your nvidia through nvidia inspector to 8xS MAX, not more, otherwise you will have performance killing- in fsx, max. dense for both autogen and scenery, terrain sliders and water, push to max, except water, one below max- run your performance tests in between, not note when it's getting better, or worse- in fsx.cfg enter bufferpools=0 tweak (please search in main fsx forum about it how to correctly use it!!!) - this tweak alone brings between 20 and 30% performanceYou have to tweak the hell out of it, so that you get more than 15fps, that's for sure. Noone can do this stuff for you, so it's either learning by doing or buy a preconfigured system. I'm positive you're gonna go the first way! :)