Firstly I respect everyone's opinion, which I'm sure is based on their own experience. This is mine, I have the same CPU as Captain420 with HT enabled, and run an Affinity Mask of 80. This is because HT is good outside of FSX and I don't want to go into the bios every minute to enable/disable it. AM 80 will use physical cores 3 & 4 and ignore the virtual ones, leaving 1 & 2 free for the OS and running programs, weather etc.
Extensive testing and benchmarking on my PC showed a marked improvement with HT on and AM80. For me,FSX ran smoother and faster, the case was opposite with no AM or AM 84. FSX loads faster, add-ons launch quickly whilst FSX is loading. Core temps are 47-54c, no heating problems but I do have the vast Coolermaster Cosmos and Corsair H80i.
I bought FSX in 2006, and I've read so many articles, tried so many tweaks, upgraded so many times - one thing I've leanrt for sure is - what works for me may not work for you and vice versa, even with similar or identical specs.
Give it a try, you've nothing to lose and possibly much to gain.