There's something about this configuration that makes it not too CPU intensive. I think it's the default 737 because overclocking the GPU doesn't make a difference in my benchmark in EGLL + PMDG 744 with this same settings

In that case it really indicates we need to up the workload substantially to put a lot more stress on the CPU. If that is the case, perhaps we should also move the test somewhere besides the Pacific Northwest where anyone having the more complex ORBX mesh will be at a significant disadvantage. For instance Boston, Toronto, Chicago or Miami and other such places would provide the needed extremely heavy default autogen workload without having a large number of people having deeply imbedded local improvements that are not even remotely performance neutral. Just a thought.Kind regards,

OK, some drastic changes. Download link posted above in post #71 will still get you the latest version. Make sure to delete any previous FSXMark11 files before installing. I'll put the download link in my signature when we make it official.- The flight now takes place in Boston, MA. It's a bit more of a boring flight in which you just circle around the Boston city center.- Made display settings more demanding (7cm textures, max autogen, max vehicle and boat traffic, etc)- Changed weather to be more demanding- Included a note in the guide to disable any graphics card utilities or profiles- Included a note to disable 3rd party weather engines and if you're using REX, to reload default FSX texturesThe average of my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th test runs:Frames: 8800Time: 300000Min: 19.3Max: 31.0Avg: 29.3This is at 4.8GHz with HT disabled and my NVIDIA Inspector profile disabled as well. The inferiority of my GTS 250 is quite evident... it's rocking all of 128 shader cores compared to you guys with anything from 336 up to 512 as long as you have a GTX460 or better! Dang, I said I was going to wait for Kepler, but this seriously has the wheels turning... I actually didn't realize GPUs were having this much of an impact.

@corey, Thanks much for starting this new version of the FSX benchmark! Like I said before, even though we are focused on Sandy Bridge results, those of us with older CPU generations - especially Q6X00s (generation 2008) and 9X0s (generation 2010) (also especialy 980Xs) - should be encouraged to run this so that we can all get an idea of the improvement factors which I believe can be as much as 2X between generations - especially with overclocking and careful tuning. I appreciate your attempts to make the fps results meaningful especially to those with PMDG+ORBX workloads - even though we can't use that scenery/aircraft in the benchmark. Please pin this new thread and really encourage all to run it. Like Stephen has said, please set up a configuration recording template that includes as many categories as make sense - CPU speed/mem speed-timing/disk/graphics(AA/Aniso)/monitor resolution+Zoom factor (maybe even some with Matrox or equiv - 3 x 1680x1050)/Comments (tweaks or special settings). Also, as soon as you have some data, it would be nice to generate a ratio from some reference - maybe your PC - so quick comparisons can be made. Way to go!(BTW, my dual core laptop with NV8200M gets about 5->6 fps - when I get a chance, I will report on my q6600 at 2.7Ghz and later on a 980X and 2600K)Dave

My results in Boston:GTX460 715MHz / 1800MHzFrames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 10614, 300000, 23, 45, 35.380GTX460 900MHz / 2100MHzFrames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 11263, 300000, 25, 46, 37.543

Hi Corey, As suggested by David, perhaps you should start a new thread containing your instructions, links and information in your PDF file. When it is up I will repost these results under your starter post somewheres in the thread. Now I am going to re-install all my normal textures and settings. LOL After seeing how poorly default FSX looks it has made me appreciate all the scenery addons I use even more! Come on Microsoft Flight, let's go!Average of 3 Boston FSX Benchmark Runs: Frames 11191, Time 300000(ms), Min FPS 23 Max FPS 49 AVG FPS 37.30Run 2.Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 11256, 300000, 24, 49, 37.520 Run 3. Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 11284, 300000, 21, 50, 37.613Run 4. Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 11034, 300000, 24, 47, 36.780----------------------------------------------AverageFrames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 11191, 300000, 23, 49, 37.30CPU i7 2600K (see above settings)MB ASUS P8P67GPU GTX 580RAM 8g Mushkin Redline #996805 (see above settings)OS Windows 7-64 sp3Test OS Drive: SSDTest FSX Drive: Black Caviar 64 cache 640gSpecifications: Default scenery, default enviroment, default textures, default mesh and adherance to all stipulated guidlines and settings as stated in official Benchmark instructions as of this time and date of posting.Major TEST fsx.cfg adjustments:[bufferpools]PoolSize=10000000RejectThreshold=131072[GRAPHICS]HIGHMEMFIX=1[JOBSCHEDULER]AffinityMask=15

Results are consistant at least in my end, so much that I don't think it's necessary to run 3 of themRelevant tweaks:[JOBSCHEDULER]AffinityMask=14[bufferPools]RejectThreshold=131072UsePools=0Addons: REX2EDIT: Ok, I'll rerun the test without REX2

Edited February 24, 201115 yr by dazz

Well from your response I take it you guys think this thing is ready for showtime. I'll post the new thread shortly.Dazz, I'm getting very consistent results as well from the 2nd run on. The most important thing is to discard the results of the 1st run.I'm glad to see that this new version of the test brought you guys with nice video cards down a few notches!

Well from your response I take it you guys think this thing is ready for showtime. I'll post the new thread shortly.Dazz, I'm getting very consistent results as well from the 2nd run on. The most important thing is to discard the results of the 1st run.I'm glad to see that this new version of the test brought you guys with nice video cards down a few notches!

Yup it's good to go imHo (emphasis on humble)Yes, we are very humbled and oh so unworthy...unworthy :Cry: ...be sure to take a picture of this groveling to remember it by, because it won't last long! :LMAO:

Ok, I'm on it... 3rd run ATMEDIT:Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 13511, 300000, 27, 60, 45.037Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 13375, 300000, 29, 58, 44.583Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 13379, 300000, 26, 59, 44.597Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg 13481, 300000, 27, 59, 44.937That's after restoring NVidia Inspector to defaults and without the REX2 texturesGonna try putting those back one at a time to see what made the difference

Edited February 24, 201115 yr by dazz

I'm very happy that Intel decided to release their mainstream platform before the enthusiast one this time. This time we'll have a lot of people moving from X58 to P67, and then from p67 to socket 2011 (whatever the chipset is)We should have plenty first hand opinions on how FSX performs depending on how enthusiast the platform is

Can't imagine how well your machine must run FSX! As you can see in my sig, I have a relatively old machine and yet experience excellent performance except in the worst of situations which almost never occurs, to the point where I still really have no need to upgrade for the foreseeable future. I guess I'll be waiting until something beyond SB, or if I have a CPU death. I am able to run my quad core at 3.89Ghz on air while staying in spec on voltage (ie, the max vCore that intel will essentially guarantee no untoward effects). I can run up to 4.2Ghz, but the perf boost isn't worth the inefficient power consumption and heat. Do you know what comes after Sandy Bridge?Noel

Can't imagine how well your machine must run FSX! As you can see in my sig, I have a relatively old machine and yet experience excellent performance except in the worst of situations which almost never occurs, to the point where I still really have no need to upgrade for the foreseeable future. I guess I'll be waiting until something beyond SB, or if I have a CPU death. I am able to run my quad core at 3.89Ghz on air while staying in spec on voltage (ie, the max vCore that intel will essentially guarantee no untoward effects). I can run up to 4.2Ghz, but the perf boost isn't worth the inefficient power consumption and heat. Do you know what comes after Sandy Bridge?Noel

Next is LGA 2011, due Q4 2011. That's the new enthusiast socket for Sandy Bridge.Then Ivy Bridge in 2012 will be a shrink to 22nm of current SB chips, probably both for LGA1155 & LGA2011, but it remains to be seen if Intel will release IB for LGA1155 or not. IB is supposed to be the same thing as SB but with better efficency and overclocking capabilities.The next new architecture will be Haswell in 22nm and then, it's shrink to 14nm, Rockwell

Next is LGA 2011, due Q4 2011. That's the new enthusiast socket for Sandy Bridge.Then Ivy Bridge in 2012 will be a shrink to 22nm of current SB chips, probably both for LGA1155 & LGA2011, but it remains to be seen if Intel will release IB for LGA1155 or not. IB is supposed to be the same thing as SB but with better efficency and overclocking capabilities.The next new architecture will be Haswell in 22nm and then, it's shrink to 14nm, Rockwell

Good Lord, soon the die shrink will be such that you won't be able to find it! I'm thinkin' it's Haswell or Rockwell provided they can be o'clocked, unless as I say my CPU dies. I'm fortunate I bought good parts at the time last upgrade because as I say, it's running good 'nuf for the foreseeable future, and that's with all add ons. Bejote's tweaks have helped to add new life into my system so that finally, I can wait for the death of a component before really needing an upgrade.

All settings per setup guide.FEXUTXGEXHT = onFrames8850 Time (ms)300000 Min14 Max53 Avg29.5

With respect to those benchmarking.... I apologize in advance for taking some of your space but unfortunately I'm tethered to the Internet thru my DroidX and can't download and install that 3DMark11. The tethered broadband connection is fairly fast but not fast enough to download such a large file. My "benchmark" is running FSX like I did before Sandy Bridge and seeing if I CTD, freeze up, or FPS go down into the single digit numbers when I fly the PMDG 747 in heavy weather from LAX to SFO. In my previous setup, I was able to fly the PMDG 747 but the FPS usually dropped into the single digits during the approach and landing into SFO. That was with the scenery sliders turned down and little or no autogen. Well, with my new SB setup, I can honestly state this new CPU is nothing less than amazing. I limited my FPS to 30 and rarely did it stay at 30 but mostly around the 20-25 FPS area. I turned up some of the scenery sliders and the autogen and placed traffic at 50%. It occasionally dropped into the teens but I saw no stuttering or any adverse effects when that occurred. Everything was extremely smooth and the landing was spectacular as, in the past, there was a lot of pressure placed on the memory and, when the PMDG 747 had to "think" really, really hard through the FMC about all the things it had to do to land safely, that's when the frames dropped into the single digits and the stuttering began and things would get ugly fast. But not this time. It was smooth all the way down and that's what I really care about. It's like having a whole new flight sim!Okay. Back to your testing and thanks for the info you are providing to the community!Best regards,Jim

Does anyone here have a fundamental understanding of how the CPU vid offet switch, on an Asus mobo, switch works and how to use it? Does it need C states and/or Speedstep enabled to be effective?