dazz

Did you install Windows with the mobo set to IDE? Because it looks to me like that's what causing your headaches. If that's the case you can fix the problem with this, and then you should be able to use your SSD at it's full capabilities http://www.everything-microsoft.com/2010/05/25/how-to-enable-ahci-in-windows-7/

Same Howard, good luck

The values you are supposed to use are the ones the RAM is rated to. Those timings vary with speed, so they need to be looser the fastest the RAM runs. JEDECs shown here are the manufacturer's speed/timing these sticks are rated to Problem is none of those JEDECs is for 800MHz, which is the speed you're currently running your RAM at, so we can't know based on that what the proper timings for 800MHz are. I picked the timings for a faster JEDEC (888MHz) to play it safe. Higher timings mean less stress to the memory controller so what we are doing here is "downclocking" the memory to release some stress from the CPU/IMC

The values in the "Memory" tab in CPU-Z are the ones in that BIOS page, the ones you probably need to change. Make it 11-11-10-30-2 instead of 11-11-10-29-2

Yes, but in your case, none of the JEDECs in CPU-Z is your actual rated speed. But I would just play it safe and select this: Is this the kit yo have there? http://media.kingston.com/pdfs/HyperX_FURY_EN.pdf

You need to press the button that reads "Manual" to the right of "AI Overclock Tuner" A pop up window should appear with 3 options: Auto, Manual and X.M.P. Select X.M.P. If the X.M.P. option is not there, then you need to dial in all the timings manually at "DRAM Timing Control" further down in that same screen

Try the XMP profile first: 1. Restart your system 2. After it beeps, press DEL repeatedly until the BIOS shows up 3. Click "Advanced Mode" on the top-right corner 4. Click the "AI-Tweaker" tab 5. Locate the "AI Overclock Tuner" option, click the button to it's right (should read "Manual", mine reads "Auto" here) 6. Select "X.M.P." if available. If it's not there, then you need to input your timings manually 7. You should see a new option bellow with the selected XMP profile. Here's mine: 8. Click "Exit" on the top right corner 9. Click "Save changes and restart"

Slots are good, but those sticks seem to run at some unusual timings. Notice you're running them at 1600MHz 9-9-9-28-2T (mobo defaults) but we can't tell from those JEDEC's at what timings they're designed to run at 1600MHz. Apparently there's no XMP profile unfortunatelly, so you probably need to go to the BIOS and dial in all the timings manually. You have three options: 1. Check if there's indeed an XMP profile in your BIOS 2. Go for the sticks' rated speed and timings. 3. Be conservative and leave the memory clock at 800MHz (1600Mhz) and set the timings at something like 11-11-10-29-40-2T Are you comfortable doing that in your BIOS?

Please post captures of the latest version of CPU-Z's SPD & Memory tabs,

Actually there's a disk defrag built in Windows (dfrgui) I believe since Vista. Never used it myself and I have no idea if it works well or not. And of course an SSD should never be defragged

Try this (8xS + 2xSGSS) Dial in these settings, but use 2x Sparse Grid Super Sampling instead of 4x. No need for rewards if it works. Welcome to Avsim!

The 2500K has two channels, so you can max that out with only two RAM sticks, but you have to make sure the sticks are installed in the proper slots. The number of memory channels don't do much if anything at all for performance. As for the BSODs, if you are using the same OC profile with the new set of RAM sticks, that may very well be the problem. How did you overclock the system? Have you overclocked the memory too?

FSXMArk11 was intentionally conceived to be CPU bound. The idea was to have a test, very much like it's predecessor, FSXMark07, as simple as possible, without addons so that anyone could run it. It's not meant to be a perfect metric for FSX performance, but since it's a well known fact that FSX is severely CPU bound, and addons just make matters worse, having a simple CPU test helps compare CPUs in FSX. I don't have any experience with P3D, and of course, if it's better balanced with regards to CPU-GPU performance, this test may not be as meaningful as in FSX, but getting the GPU performance out of the picture will also give you a meaningful metric for CPU performance to compare CPUs in P3D. I would say that's a lot better that any other synthetic benchmark, but that's just me. Those 3Dmark benchmark results can be found in the web anyway. Is P3D not CPU bound around large airports with complex addons at 1080p with a mid range GTX960? Because if it is, then adding massive resolutions and powerful GPUs will at best, get you the same performance than with that GTX960 @ 1080p

Not sure if already mentioned, but have you checked your "Power management mode" is set to "Prefer maximum performance" in NI or NCP?

I would say it's a perfect match for FS9 considering FS9 is single threaded