Planning to build a new FSX system and surprised when i saw this review showing i5's gaming performance as almost identical if not better than i7 in some cases I know i7 with HT is good for video editing or office apps. But does it have an edge for gaming? If so, what is it's edge over i5-2500K particularly when both are overclocked to almost identical speeds? Also, btw, wondering which one the games listed on the above link is more similar to FSX?

For FSX best perfromance you want the i7-2600K. CPU differences here.No games are similar to FSX becasue FSX was released long ago and has not been update, while the major games hafe benefitted from regular upgrades so they more closely match current available PC hardware.Cheers,- jahman.

Thanks. I understand i7 is a better chip by itself. But given the fact both chips can be overclocked with relative ease, and assuming you overclock them to the same speed, say 4.8 GHz, would i7 be still better?

Apparently the extra cache on the I7 (2600) does make a difference in FSX

If there is any difference for FSX, it's extremely small. The $100 difference in price could be much better spent on a better GPU or a nice new case or better cooling or ... you get the point - anything that would make your system more well rounded. If you already have money to buy all that stuff then you're probably not concerned with the $100 extra, so go ahead and get the 2500k.Looking at the FSXMark11 results, I don't think any test conclusively shows the i7-2600k to provide better performance. All the 2600k's at the top are simply because those people also have high-end GPUs, memory, etc.

You also may end up getting an i7 that can only clock to 4.6/4.7, or an i5 which can get up to 5GHz. In which case the advantage of 2mb more cache would be blown out of the water. It's a complete lottery with these chips. The reason I went with the 2600 is due to doing a lot of photoshop work and wasn't really based around FSX. It'll also hold it's value slightly better down the road if I want to swap to an Ivybridge upon release.

If there is any difference for FSX, it's extremely small. The $100 difference in price could be much better spent on a better GPU or a nice new case or better cooling or ... you get the point - anything that would make your system more well rounded. If you already have money to buy all that stuff then you're probably not concerned with the $100 extra, so go ahead and get the 2500k.Looking at the FSXMark11 results, I don't think any test conclusively shows the i7-2600k to provide better performance. All the 2600k's at the top are simply because those people also have high-end GPUs, memory, etc.

You also may end up getting an i7 that can only clock to 4.6/4.7, or an i5 which can get up to 5GHz. In which case the advantage of 2mb more cache would be blown out of the water. It's a complete lottery with these chips. The reason I went with the 2600 is due to doing a lot of photoshop work and wasn't really based around FSX. It'll also hold it's value slightly better down the road if I want to swap to an Ivybridge upon release.

AgreedI'm also under the impresion that the extra 2MB of L3 cache, if they make a difference it's a marginal thing. I'd take a 2500K at 4.8GHz over a 2600K at 4.7GHz any day of the weekFisrt impression was that the 2600K overclocked a bit more, but apparently that's not the case either

Thanks guys. It's going to be a 2500k for me, specially after looking at FSX Mark11 results..One decision down. A couple more to go On the similar lines, i am thinking of getting an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO instead of P8Z68 Deluxe. Later seem to be more popular but the difference between the two (two LAN ports vs single for PRO) doesn't seem to matter,. What do you think?

Save yourself some money and just get the P67 board. Unless you have a use for SSD caching, Quicksync or onboard graphics? All pretty useless features for most people.

After about six months of quiet observation I've come to believe that the 2500K's may overclock better than the 2600K's. I've yet to see more than one or two 2600K's running at 5ghz and most of them I see in sigs (here, at other FS forums, overclock.net, etc.) are running 4.6-4.8ghz. Also if I can find the link to the listing of CPU-Z rankings for clock speed, of the SB chips listed not a single one is a 2600K. I'm not positive about this, part of me believes that people with 2600K's don't want to burn out their chip because it cost $300< whereas a 2500K costs closer to $200

The thing is that a 2600k with HT turned on is always going to require more voltage than a 2500k at equivalent speeds. This is the reason that most people stop at 4.8 with e i7, as they've reached what they perceive as the voltage limit. Turning HT off though, and there's no reason why the chips wont reach the same multis on the same voltage all things being equal of course.