Hi All,I'm just thinking of a processor upgrade. Made necessary by having very low (5-15!) FPS in the UK around London and UK2000 airports.Only realised that my CPU seems to be a bit of a bottleneck by an experiment with overclocking - Never had over clocked before and decided to give it a try tonight - I was incredibly surprised. Using UK2000 East Midlands I got between a 5 and 10 FPS increase by overclocking from 3.4GHz to 3.8GHz!!! However when setting up a little flight in the NGX an old friend who I hadn't seen in a while paid me a visit.... Mr BSOD!So I've been looking. First off. I'm an AMD man and have never been able to be persuaded otherwise - Plus my entire system is geared up for AMD and also I'm hoping that an AMD to AMD upgrade wouldn't necessitate a windows re-install - Took me plenty of time to get FSX just how I like it!Anywhoo I'm currently running a Phenom II x4 965 Black edition (3.4GHz) - The one I'm looking to upgrade to (as its a steal at the price!) is an AMD Bulldozer FX-4 4170 (4.2GHz).Whilst there are the 6 and 8 cores out there, I remember reading and a little scouring the forum seems to reveal that FSX prefers a higher clock core than more cores - correct?Also what do you all reckon, will I see a bit of an increase with that processor? The GFX card is over-specd and the memory is more than ample (16GB!) so the bottle-neck (as backed up by OC tests) seems to be the processor.Thanks,James*Edit* My browser hung during posting and somehow I've ended up with two new topics. Would a mod be kind enough to delete/merge one for me please?*

JamesI think that you will find that although the AMD BD is a fine business machine it won't have the same grunt wrt FSX as say an i5 2500K would have. Comparing the processor speed between AMD and Intel is tenuous at best and you may be comparing apples to pears. It is extremely difficult as to which processor will run FSX best but the general consensus is that the Sandy Bridge series do run it better than most other cpus. I think that it was about 5 years ago (post P4 3.8GHz) that Intel and/or AMD changed the way that cpu speed in GHz should be displayed and since then it has not been easy to decide what these GHz actually mean in the practical world, and with the introduction of muticores to run software that is not truly multicore coded only makes it even more difficult..If as you say, that you wish to stay with AMD then perhaps the X6 1090T or 1100T might be worth considering? FSX is multicore aware (well some of the time - it is definitely not true multicore) but as you have surmised having a larger number of cores doesn't mean to say that you will see increased performance, but these two seem to out perform the X4 bull dozer.The key to success wrt FSX is balance and that means a good mobo, fast stable cpu, matched fast RAM, good fast video card, and a fast uncluttered HDD and OS.I hope you achieve the desired result.RegardsPeterH

Whilst there are the 6 and 8 cores out there, I remember reading and a little scouring the forum seems to reveal that FSX prefers a higher clock core than more cores - correct?

No, FSX responds to CPU speed and number of cores.I just bought an Intel 3960X system, but don't have the sceneries you're running, so I can't make a direct comparison. Slewing around my Tucson photo scenery with lots of autogen and models, the 3960X is running averages of 60 fps to well over 100 fps in some areas at 1920 x 1200 and high settings including LOD_RADIUS=9.500000. Slewing at low level and 400 kts didn't produce any blurries. I had to ramp it up to 800 kts to get it to blur any.I've been impressed with how fast this thing runs. The default downtown Seattle scenery can be a framerate hog, but the 3960X barely shrugs, even with lots of traffic. So far, it doesn't care what I throw at it. The framerates don't drop anywhere near 30.

So is it perhaps suggested that I should not get this processor in favor of my current 965 - Unfortunately Intel is off the menu for me as my mobo is an AM3+ support - so its phenom or bulldozer for me. I could Re-do the moby but it seems a large expense for the moment - but I do keep hearing excellent things from these new i7s!So what do people think regarding possible FPS gain going to the new FX 4.2 core?

Don't do it. It would be a downgrade.A Phenom II X6 performs more or less (depending on the application) like a FX8120 (8 cores) in multithreaded apps. Go figureWait for Piledriver and pray for a miraculous AMD comeback

Wait for Piledriver and pray for a miraculous AMD comeback

Or a step back into the past! :LMAO: