Ok, I'm considering upgrading JUST my CPU to a 533fsb 3.06GHZ with HT. My current CPU (533fsb 2.4b GHZ) does not have HT. (about $225 USD)Will I notice much of an improvment or should I save the $$ and wait it out to get an 3GHZ 800fsb mobo/ram and cpu? (about $600 USD).Also, I have O/C this system as high as 2.7GHZ with the default heat sink and fan (and some thermal paste on the CPU) and seen no diff in performance. In fact, I lost a few frames in FS9 with it O/C. Any odeas why I would lose some juice when O/C?I wait for the debate/advice to begin and will thank all those in advance (my current specs below).Asus P4B533 Intel 2.4GHZ1 GIG RamGeForce FX 5700 256MB (56.72)SB AudigyMSFF2 & X45 throttleSee you in the fence...CYYZ

I recommend that you save your money.HT won't be of much benefit in FS9. You could realize as much as a 25% increase in performance, but the cost would be high. Not enough bang for the buck for me.Just my 2 cents worth,Greg

Save you money; HT can be a big hindrance with FS9. It depends on what other resources you have running & how much overhead you have on your system. I've seen diminished tangible degradation with ACAD2004 (of all things) & FS9 with HT enabled (to name a few).If you want to run FS9 with max. CPU resources available (& who doesn't), then forget about HT.... but only per the citeria I mentioned in the opening.I'm not sure what to make of your OC problem; maybe FS9 couldn't keep up :)Cheers.

"diminished tangible degradation":-hmmm Greg

As Greg kindly pointed out, I issued a double negative in my last post here, so disregard "diminished".....Cheers.

I thought it sounded kinda cool... sort of NASAish. :-) Cheers,Greg

Quite simply, I agree with the other poster - save your money. Instead, I would heartily recommend investing a little of what you have saved in pursuing what the following link has to offer:http://www.fs-gs.com/Transformed my simming experience beyond all my expectations :)MikeP4 2.4GHz (400FSB), 1Gig PC2100 DDR Crucial, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Omega 2.5.36b), SB Audigy (5.12.0001.0443), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" TFT LCD 20ms Monitor (1280x1024x32), Gigabyte GA-8IRXP MoBo, Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W, WinXP Home (SP1), DirectX 9.0b, AGP Aperture = 128MB

I did a swap 2.26/533 to 2.8/533 a few months ago because of "a clerical error" ;) which got me the new chip essentially free. I can say that the process was painless, I upped my frames from low teens to mid twenties with 100% ai, etc - probably about 20-30% increase - with a much smoother feel overall. Well worth the money for me! LOLIn your situation, I'd agree with the others - save your money!Heres why: even though the processor has hyperthreading, your current Mobo's bios probably doesn't support it, thus it will be disabled - you'll still get the horsepower benefit of the higher clock speed, but no HT. Check that your mobo either supports HT as is, or see if there's a bios update, otherwise look into non-ht versions of the same chip - I'm pretty sure there is a non-ht 3.06, certainly there's a 2.8, which will be a lot cheaper in all likelyhood if your convinced this is the way to go.Otherwise, I'd wait 6 mos, and get an 800mhz FSB mobo and chip - the faster bus will help you out in the future considerably.Hope that helps!sg

I doubt it will make much difference to FS2004 since it apparently doesn't use multithreading, but I just made precisely that swap on my PC and it has made a noticeable improvement in CPU-bound programs which do use multithreading (e.g. Lightwave rendering)."Also, I have O/C this system as high as 2.7GHZ with the default heat sink and fan (and some thermal paste on the CPU) and seen no diff in performance. In fact, I lost a few frames in FS9 with it O/C."One possibility is that if the P4 CPU core goes above about 72C due to overclocking, it will automatically throttle back to a lower speed in order to reduce temperature output. It could be that the standard cooler just isn't good enough to keep the CPU cool at that clock speed.

Hey Scott, we talked about this before (I'm still saving my money), but you did a straight swap of the CPU from a stock Dell like mine right?Could you let me know if that it right and what I will need to pull this off one more time: I lost your fist post that I printed off. Thanks buddy!To the original poster: Let us know how this works out for you. I'm really keen to try the CPU only upgrade as well from my stock Dell 2.53cheers!

Well my current board does support H/T. I was thinking with the additional 600MHZ and the H/T I might see a general over-all performance. To be honest I would love to see a 25% increase.A few years back I did a CPU up grade only (a 500MHZ to 800MHZ P3 system) and loved the results. I normally get a new system every year but things have been tight and was looking for a cheap way out and hoping to stretch things for another year.I will keep you posted on how things go guys. And I'm still interested in hearing more comments before I make a decision.Thanks!See you in the fence...CYYZ

You'll certainly see some improvement in performance, but in my case it's probably not enough for me to be able to distinguish between the two CPUs in a blind test without running something like Lightwave that really benefits from HT. Unfortunately I only just got FS2004 so I never ran it on the old CPU to compare the two.

You should see a performance boost from the faster CPU but as others have pointed out, HT probubly won't help and might even slow MSFS. You'll just have to experiment with it and see how it works for you.TonyDigital-Flight

Yep - straight swap. Dell has a proprietary heat sink and fan, so you'll have to use the old one with the new CPU - Going from 2.26 to 2.8 I have had no problems, higher than that and you might need to upgrade. Apparently dell has a spare parts department, you should be able to buy their current heat sink/fan assembly for the 3+ ghz cpu for a few extra bucks...or try the old sink and see what happens!I can easily see the difference going from 2.26 to 2.8 in terms of FS performance - your mileage may vary!I also reinstalled intel chipset drivers, that was it...Best,sg