How many of you set your machine to high performance in the Power Options menu ? For one thing, it seems to overwrite your Intel Speedstep setting and your pc no longer idles at 1600mhz but will go the full extent of the clock. I see this could be beneficial to FSX in preventing minor stutters but is it effecting hardware life? You can define the parameter of your minimum cpu state to whatever you want, MS sets it to 100% min-max. Just wanted to hear what some others think.

You'll notice that while FSX is running, your CPU will never throttle down. On PCs I can't see this setting helping you at all. On a laptop, it may be worth a look.

Look under the advance settings for the High Performace profile and customize the min/max CPU utilization - High Performance Profile defaults to 100% - 100% (no throttle-back); but you can change it here. Perhaps reference the defaults in the Balanced Performance profile.You should have some down-clocking at idel as it is 'feature' of the new generation motherboards and CPUs that don't kill or hinder the overclock capabilities. Run CPU-Z and note the MHz running at 1600 while idle and full overclock under load. This is a good thing that will save you energy/money as well as needless wear and tear on overclocked parts. It's a good thing...