Coming from AMD myself (965BE & 1090T) I will go ahead and say don't touch AMD with a 10 foot pole if it's for FSX. Sandy Bridge wipes the floor with Phenom II, period.I mean twice as fast or something like that, no kidding. FSX relies on single threaded performance and clock speed. SB has a MUCH higher IPC than Phenom II (and Bulldozer's even lower, go figure) and clocks much higher too.Phenom II runs cooler, yes, in absolute terms only though. Phenoms have a max temp of 62ºC while SB is fine up to 80ºC. Sandy Bridge is a lot more cost effective: even overclocked it draws less powerIt's a no brainer. For FSX, I5 2500K

These overcompensating violent reactions to the mere mention of AMD are very telling. "Methinks thou dost protest too much." - W.S.

These overcompensating violent reactions to the mere mention of AMD are very telling. "Methinks thou dost protest too much." - W.S.

Dennis, I didn't mean it to be a violent response, just somewhat assertive. I can find the link of two or three other guys in this forum's HW section who switched from Phenom II to SB and you can check by yourself what I mean, and that I'm not the only one. If you can't see the difference there might be something else going on with your rigs

Dennis, I didn't mean it to be a violent response, just somewhat assertive. I can find the link of two or three other guys in this forum's HW section who switched from Phenom II to SB and you can check by yourself what I mean, and that I'm not the only one. If you can't see the difference there might be something else going on with your rigs

Going from Athlon II x3 to sandy bridge (both OC'ed & running 65c under prime95) tripled my framerates & made things far smoother.

Okay, enough of you guys whom I greatly respect have spoken. I am going to re-rig my fsx computer with the SB and take some before and after comparisons. I'm open to the fact that I screwed up my previous FSX rig. Will let you know. Gosh, this is going to be a lot of work. It'll have to wait a few hours. I'm in between PANC and KSFO.

Just a note on hyperthreading, confirming once again that the i5-2500K is the way to go.Both the i5-2500K and the i7-2600K have 4 physical cores. The i7 supports hyperthreading, which means each physical core can run two threads. Thus the i5 can run up to 4 threads, while the i7 can run up to 8 threads. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2383921,00.asp#fbid=iJ1IlFOSxAF Most software is still not well multithreaded. Except for highly specialized programs (eg. graphics rendering) essentially NO software supports more than 4 threads. So even in a multi-threaded program (which sounds like FS is not), the i5-2500K is plenty. As others have said it does an amazing job of overclocking. My 2500K is running at 4GHz still using the stock cooler!!

I think the 2500K i has a 4MB cache and the the 2600K 8MB cache, correct ? And fsx utilises that, I believe. Any advantage with having a larger cache ?

These overcompensating violent reactions to the mere mention of AMD are very telling. "Methinks thou dost protest too much." - W.S.

Sorry Dennis. But still.

I think the 2500K i has a 4MB cache and the the 2600K 8MB cache, correct ? And fsx utilises that, I believe. Any advantage with having a larger cache ?

I think it has 6. Best. Miquel Egea.

If Intel and AMD didn't agree each other now we would have 8ghz cpus.

I think the 2500K i has a 4MB cache and the the 2600K 8MB cache, correct ? And fsx utilises that, I believe. Any advantage with having a larger cache ?

It is my understating that the i7's higher cache is for the ht

I settled on the i5 2500K after reading the hardware posts (and some of Zach's - thank you!) ,and I think this is also in a previousthread.http://jetlinesystems.com/performance.phpWhich decided I buy the i5.I overclocked to 4.3Ghz on an air cooler with the GA-Z68P-DS3 mobo and Artic Cooler Exteeme V2.http://www.arctic.ac/en/p/cooling/cpu/57/.html?c=2181I think this product might be discontinued now,but there are plenty of equivalents out there.

Don't limit yourself to Intel. I have several computers. One of them has a Sandy Bridge, another has an AMD Phenom II. The AMD performs as well as the Sandy Bridge and outperforms SB when overclocking. (Temps, etc.) Take a look at the AMD. You can save yourself some money.

HelloSo an overclocked Phenom II will outperform an overclocked i5 2500K, if only that were true.The new AMD bulldozer 8 core cannot even manage that never mind an ancient architecture such as Phenom II.

It is my understating that the i7's higher cache is for the ht

Ok, thanks Ken, I read about somewhere, but I am too old to remember.

Most software is still not well multithreaded. Except for highly specialized programs (eg. graphics rendering) essentially NO software supports more than 4 threads. So even in a multi-threaded program (which sounds like FS is not), the i5-2500K is plenty.

Sorry, but Chess programs like Deep Fritz 12 and Rybka 4 support as many threads as are available (8 on my rig). Henri