For the longest time, I was a card carrying member of the Intel bashing club. That may soon come to an end, however. Please read the following short article concerning the upcoming Intel chip. Make your evaluations of the chip in the context of the significantly increasing CPU requirements of each generation of Microsoft's Flight Simulator series. I believe in terms of CPU power, we may finally have a winner in terms of FSX performance from the first day FSX is released. All we will then need are DX10 video cards and Window's Vista for our FSX dreams to come true. I am very excited about the upcoming FSX release. FSX coupled with the Intel Conroe, DX10 hardware, and Vista my be the icing on the cake, with a cherry on top. Bring it (all of it) on!!!http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/index.php?p=240RH

Is Conroe a dual core chip?

We'll just have to wait n' see. :)I won't say which will be better because it's impossible to say until the rigs are out being benched by real people like me. And besides, we all know how it is--AMD takes a lead, then Intel takes a lead, back and forth back and forth. Competition is great for us. But I wouldn't go out on a limb and say Conroe will blow what AMD has planned. We don't know. This reminds me:One time, here at AVSIM it was said, "nVidia 7900 will blow away ATI", and I said, "may be, but ATI will answer with a better faster one next month"...which is simple factual statement about the nature of the business over the last oh, only 15 years...and I was promptly labeled an ATI "a really excited user" even though I don't own an ATI card, etc. hahaha. All I was doing was merely commenting on the nature of the business. It's the same with CPU's...I hope, RH, that you don't get called an Intel a really excited user now. :)Rhett

The real interest will be if MB mfrs are also able to release stable Conroe platforms. Doesn't matter which cpu is the fastest--reason I've poked along with a P3/800 for years in part is because FS2004 doesn't lock up and still gives me livable fps in most situations. Now I am putting together a new system and the question is--do I wait a month or two for Conroe or seek something stable and true? -John

I'd wait till the dust settles a month or two after FSX has been released before investing in new hardware at this point.I personally wouldn't upgrade now unless I absolutely had to, especially with the DirectX 10 cards supposedly just over the horizon...Bryan

Okay, okay, okay, I am convinced already...You have me convinced, really. I will need new hardware and a new OS. Would one of you techno-hardware-geek-a-zoid types send me an email when the world is in perfect alignment and tell me then what to buy, when to buy and what other "bits" I will need??? I don't have the time or the inclination to figure this all out myself, so I will definitely need consultants to figure all this out for me.Otherwise, I may have to pay Pixelpoke (Jason) a consulting fee to help me out and that could have serious consequenses. Consulting from a graphics techno-geek-a-zoid could cost me even bigger bucks, if you get my drift!!!! :)

Hi Tom,I personally am taking a wait and see approach. However, benchmarks comparing the Intel Conroe to the current top of the line, brand new AMD 64 AM2 show the same degree of improvement that was obtained from those upgrading to the Athlon64 from the old fashion Athlon. It's just a good solid increase with lots and lots of headroom for the Intel part to grow. Usually we don't see such improvements in hardware until the MSFS version has been out a year or two. For those who are patient and purchase a Conroe-based system, I don't think they can go wrong. I believe the three year wait from FS04 to FSX will have been well worth it and contributed significantly to the positive situation.I just wish there was a site devoted to Microsoft Flight Simulator from a computer hardware perspective. MS FSX-Vista-DX10 + Intel Conroe = FS Ecstasy RH

Does it mean absolutely fluid FSX experience with all eye candy, weather , 3-rd part aircrft, etc.?. I highly doubt it. In fact there is plenty of bottleneck in our video cards, memory bandwith, etc. We still have ways to go to achieve simulation "nirvana". Michael J.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/for...argo_hauler.gifhttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-beta.jpg

""I just wish there was a site devoted to Microsoft FlightSimulator from a computer hardware perspective.""Couldn't agree more since3 it is one of the most demanding and unpredictable titles out there!""MS FSX-Vista-DX10 + Intel Conroe = FS Ecstasy"" As an AMD user, I hope they come out with something to counter Intel by then, we'll just have to wait and see. Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/tfbeta.jpg

Just remember AMD will have their own new architechture out as well... this is like comparing a GeForce 7900 to a Radeon X800...

The new AMD Athlon AM2 is out now. It just came out; it will be awhile before they introduce an entirely new product. Intel's is brand new and will be out in a month.RH

> I just wish there was a site devoted to Microsoft Flight Simulator from a computer hardware perspective. What about the Avsim FS hardware forum??http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=197

Hahaha, Well Intel is releasing their stuff in 3Q 06, and by the time the produc t really sinks in it will be 1Q 07, and by 2Q 07 will have a new AMD Quad core L3 cache/ HT3 processor out. I read daily or inq that they will probaly also release a chip with more than 4cores soon after that. Now add that to a 4*4 system, you will have 8-? cores in one computer :). By this time next year we will be seeing lot of games and programs taking better use of the multiple cores. So intel might have a more efficent core as of now, but in 9 months from now , AMD will have tons of cores and also a more efficient core (Reduced Cache latency, 2 MB L3 cache and HT3).I really dont want AMD to loose this race becuase, having only one chip maker would suck. You should really thank AMD for Conroe, not Intel. If AMD was not there Intel would still be shoving NetBurst around. Why develop new products when consumers are happy with the current one.

A decent SparcStation running Solaris 10 is in order.Not the best at running FS but a joy to work with.

I am no expert but surely the number of cores is only significant if there are sufficient threads to make use of them. Do we know that FSX will make use of a four core processor?Regarding the report in the first post it hints that Conroe is very fast on current games because the one core uses all of the cache. For multi-threaded games it looks as though the performance improvement over the FX series is not as significant becausethe cache is then shared.Still, it is good to have some significant competition for AMD FX. The prices are rediculous.