Hey, Ironmaiden, why did you suggest an i5 2500k and not an i7 2500k? Do they both perform about the same with FSX? How about planing for the future when MS Flight comes out? I'm asking because I am building a system, as you may recall from my thread, and I was planing on an i7 2500k so I wouldn't need to worry about upgrades for several years.

The only difference between the i7 2600K and the i5 2500K (apart from price) is the i7 has hyperthreading and a larger cache. It is doubtful Flight will use any of those 2 gadgets. Go with the i5 2500K. You can always upgrade to the ivy bridge when they are released as they are the same socket type.

Hey, Ironmaiden, why did you suggest an i5 2500k and not an i7 2500k? Do they both perform about the same with FSX? How about planing for the future when MS Flight comes out? I'm asking because I am building a system, as you may recall from my thread, and I was planing on an i7 2500k so I wouldn't need to worry about upgrades for several years.

Hahaha here goes why I said i 5 and not i7 , if you notice my sig I don't have an intel system , but I have read a lot of posts here and members vouch for the i5 2500k over the i7 and as Di mentioned the difference is the price and a larger cache and hyperthreading which is probably useless for FSX. Flight is still a distant story. BTW what system are you currently using ?

amazing is not the right word we are Ridiculous The i5 2500k is great , but if you are looking to stick to the Phenom then as Dazz suggested OC it. Can you tell us what settings and what performance are you getting on the current machine.

In all honesty, I am not confident in my ability to OC a chip... This might sound bad, but I would rather purchase a faster chip due to my lack of computer knowledge. I personally built this computer, so I know the basics. But I would not go as far as to say I could OC a chip. I don't have any current data from running FSX. I built the computer, installed FSX, then turned back to FS2004 to see the difference, and I stuck with FS2004. Now, I want to get back to FSX, and I have the money, so I am going to go ahead with a computer upgrade. Thank you all again!

In all honesty, I am not confident in my ability to OC a chip... This might sound bad, but I would rather purchase a faster chip due to my lack of computer knowledge. I personally built this computer, so I know the basics. But I would not go as far as to say I could OC a chip. I don't have any current data from running FSX. I built the computer, installed FSX, then turned back to FS2004 to see the difference, and I stuck with FS2004. Now, I want to get back to FSX, and I have the money, so I am going to go ahead with a computer upgrade. Thank you all again!

Oc'ing requires some knowledge and patience and you need too be careful, a faster chip may still need some kind of Oc'ing for FSX. Have you tried Bojote's tweaks and Nick Nvidia tweak may that could help you out. I have an Athlon X3 445 oc'ed to 3.8 with out any heavy add ons I get around 25-29 and sometimes a bit fluctuating fps but it's good. Do not play with the voltages.

The new sandy bridges are a LOT easier to overclock. Find a good guide, sit down and read through it. You'll get there easily.

Definitely a big boost you will get with the i5.

Hahaha here goes why I said i 5 and not i7 , if you notice my sig I don't have an intel system , but I have read a lot of posts here and members vouch for the i5 2500k over the i7 and as Di mentioned the difference is the price and a larger cache and hyperthreading which is probably useless for FSX. Flight is still a distant story. BTW what system are you currently using ?

Current system is a Gateway DX4300-03 with an AMD Phenom X4 9750 @2.4Mhz, 8MB DDR2, NVidia GeForce GTX 580, a Western Digital 1TB hard drive, a Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB hard drive for FSX, and an 800watt PSU. The only things I changed out where the graphics card, VelociRaptor hard drive, and power supply. The 8MB DDR2 where with it when I bought it a few years ago. I wasn't into Flight Sim at the time and don't get into any games unless it's to play with the kids. Now that I'm hooked on Flight Sim I was going to upgrade this computer as best I could until my youngest offered to buy it off me if I wanted to build my own. Now how sweet is that? Of course I don't feel right selling it to her; however, she insists on doing something to "buy" it so I decided to just build one, let her buy one or two things, and give her this computer.

Well all you need is new ram, motherboard, cpu, cooler and case. Probably the 4 cheapest components

8MB or 8 GB ? , you have a good card for FSX. Phenom X4 9750 is a good chip but doubtful for FSX, the i5 2500k should the one you should look at.

I would recommend the i5-2500k and the ASRock Z68 Extreme 3 Gen 3... It's also compatible with PCI-E 3.0 as well as Ivy Bridge, so it sets you up for future upgrades very nicely as well.

Are you guy's sure that LGA1155 is the best future proof path for FSX, what about the upcoming LGA2011???

The 2011 socket is for the sandy bridge extremes and ivy bridge extremes. The standard ivy bridges will use the 1155 socket.

LGA2011 is going to be very expensive, it will still be 32nm, it doesn't have 3D transistors, and it's going to be hot. According to an article I read recently, TDP is going to be somewhere between 130 and 180 watts! Compare that to Sandy Bridge's 95 watts. Meanwhile, Ivy Bridge for Socket 1155 will come out early next year, be 22nm, have 3D transistors, probably be able to clock higher than LGA2011, drop right into our 1155 boards, and run much much cooler all at much lower cost. Socket 2011 basically brings 6 cores and more PCI-E lanes than 1155. Neither of those "advantages" will benefit FSX. As for Flight, it's too far off to know. I certainly hope it's able to take advantage of more cores and multiple GPUs, but you might as well go with what we know works for FSX and save money to boot!

I'm sure will have some entertaining 1155 vs 2011 threads soon enough, hehe. Here's hoping all LGA2011 adopters run FSMark11 and share their results with all of us

8MB or 8 GB ? , you have a good card for FSX. Phenom X4 9750 is a good chip but doubtful for FSX, the i5 2500k should the one you should look at.

Oops, my bad. Yeah, 8GB.

The only difference between the i7 2600K and the i5 2500K (apart from price) is the i7 has hyperthreading and a larger cache. It is doubtful Flight will use any of those 2 gadgets. Go with the i5 2500K. You can always upgrade to the ivy bridge when they are released as they are the same socket type.

Flight not gonna use hyper-threading? It is only really utilised by media programs at the moment. I asked my friend to try HAWX with and without it and he said it makes no diff.

In all honesty, I am not confident in my ability to OC a chip... This might sound bad, but I would rather purchase a faster chip due to my lack of computer knowledge. I personally built this computer, so I know the basics. But I would not go as far as to say I could OC a chip. I don't have any current data from running FSX. I built the computer, installed FSX, then turned back to FS2004 to see the difference, and I stuck with FS2004. Now, I want to get back to FSX, and I have the money, so I am going to go ahead with a computer upgrade. Thank you all again!

OK, the SB chips with the K are incredibly easy. To get to 4.0GHz just disable turbo boost and increase the multiplier. To 4.5GHz, disable those stupid safety things and put multi to 45. Past that its a little trickier, you need to start to play with the voltage but its not too hard. This isn't exactly what you do but I did it for the first time, and it was dead set easy.

LGA2011 is going to be very expensive, it will still be 32nm, it doesn't have 3D transistors, and it's going to be hot. According to an article I read recently, TDP is going to be somewhere between 130 and 180 watts! Compare that to Sandy Bridge's 95 watts. Meanwhile, Ivy Bridge for Socket 1155 will come out early next year, be 22nm, have 3D transistors, probably be able to clock higher than LGA2011, drop right into our 1155 boards, and run much much cooler all at much lower cost. Socket 2011 basically brings 6 cores and more PCI-E lanes than 1155. Neither of those "advantages" will benefit FSX. As for Flight, it's too far off to know. I certainly hope it's able to take advantage of more cores and multiple GPUs, but you might as well go with what we know works for FSX and save money to boot!

Same thing with what happened when SB came out. There was the extreme 1366 but the SB beat it in most areas. Honestly, if you smart, the IB is the one to wait for.