I just have to share this with you guys because it really paints a very clear picture of what FSX really demands from your computer. So, until recently I had a dedicated gaming PC (AMD FX-6300 o/c @4,3GHz, 8GB RAM, Geforce GTX 660 2GB etc etc.) which I had to sell because of unfortunate economic reasons. FSX was working ok on it, but I had a lot of stuttering going on especially in autogen dense areas and with bad weather, not the small kind which you barely notice but really bad stuttering. I've played FSX for a few years now and know the usual tweaks and I studied computer science at vocational level and it is a hobby of mine to build computers -and often sell them lol- so I know my stuff.

 

So, after I had to sell my PC I was left to a last resort if I wanted to fly in FSX, my MacMini (late 2012). It has a Core i7-3615QM (mobile chip) which is clocked at 2,3GHz but can turbo boost up to 3,3GHz, not on all cores but at least the first one and it has 6MB of L3 cache. Responsible for drawing graphics is a "measly" Intel HD 4000 IGP that shares a combined pool of 4GB of DDR3 1600MHz with the rest of the system. So i configured bootcamp and installed Windows 7 64-bit, not expecting anything in terms of performance. After installing FSX, some add-on scenery and planes and doing the common tweaks I start flying, butter-smooth! No placebo or anything, same settings as on my "old" PC rig. First time since started with FSX, it was almost stutter-free. I couldn't believe it, yes the i7 is a better CPU than the FX-6300 but at such low clock-speeds and with INTEGRATED GRAPHICS!?!?!?

 

Sure, in heavy scenery and bad weather (especially with SweetFX anti-aliasing on) it tends to stutter a bit but otherwise best performance I've ever had in FSX. Unfortunately, probably due to poor intel drivers, I get shimmering textures at medium distance which I haven't been able to cure, it's not a dealbreaker but you do notice it. I tried ansiotropic filtering forced in the intel control panel but it does nothing.

 

These findings are now telling me a few new truths about FSX and also questions a few "facts" about FSX performance that we have been taught to believe in the last few years.

 

1. Clock-speed isn't everything that matters, architecture of the CPU is KEY! Here we have a mobile i7 chip that tops out at 3,3GHz (on one core to boot) and it beats both my i3 2120 (3,3GHz) and my AMD FX-6300@4,3GHz that I used to have.

 

2. Multi-threading (not multi-core) and cache might matter more than we think. I decided to do some research after my recent findings and found an official Intel article that mentioned that FSX in one of it's updates received better "multi-threading" capabilities. This might have something to do why the i7 is so efficient in running FSX, because it can run 2 threads per core. AFAIK, only the i7's have this capability. It would explain why the FX-6300 with all it's cores (real AND "fake" ones) can't match the i7. FSX does multi-threading, multi-core not so much, it's an important difference since they are two different things.

 

3. Forget about super-expensive graphics cards, for FSX at least, P3D2 is a different story. Why? well, if an integrated HD 4000 with shared DDR3 memory can run FSX with high settings, why would you need ANYTHING above a 100€ dedicated GPU? Unless you play other more modern games.

 

These are not universal truths but after my own findings, they are for me at least. I just had to write this lengthy post because these accidental findings were so major. I tells me that an i7 is always best for FSX, no matter how many cores another CPU might have and it tells me, don't waste money on expensive GPU's. Your experience may vary of course.

The architecture makes sense but the video card part....

 

the reason we run massive power hungry GPU's is for the after effects....  tons of AA and AF, multimonitor support etc.  I'm guessing you weren't able to run a bunch of AA on that integrated board.

 

Still reference the CPU - I'd like to see how your mac i7 bench's against the OCed AMD...  I bet they're closer than you'd think.  AMD has been not even close to intel's i5/i7 releases in terms of performance.  Your findings just make this point more clear.