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I am thinking of upgrading my processor in my computer spec from a q6600 4x2.40ghz to something a little faster.

My budget is about

Well there is nothing better for GAMES then the E8xxx series....hell it even gives the i7 chips a run for its money. But that is only in games....in other media tasks you are better off with a Quad Core especially the Q9650 that does not suffer from the "wall" of the Q94xx and others which hit a barrier at 3.5ghz including my own.

Its very tricky upgrading from a Q6600 as you are getting decent performance already. Unless you can sell you Quad and get a E8600 and clock it to 4Ghz easy....its a good move.

Spend some time in the Overclocking forum..

You'd be better off spending some money on high quality RAM, and getting that  Q6600 up over 3GHZ, than you would upgrading a the CPU itself. Will you get $270 worth of improvement(cost of an E8600) out of it ?  Not IMHO.


I'd keep the $270 and use it towrad a total upgrade, down the road.

The words ' budget' and 'FSX' should never be used in the same sentence.

Any money saved now, is spent twice over down the road.

(Lesson learned the hard way. )

ok... So if I wanted to overclock it to over 3ghz would I need a custom CPU Fan, I have Got the Antec Performance 180 Case which has 3 120mm 3 speed fans. My motherboard is a Asus p-N32 sli prenium. last time I tried overclocking by 5% it kept giving me blue screens. any ideas?

This is a thread best handled by Nick.

My best advice, and what I'm currently doing, is to save up and get an i7 system.

Nick has posted what is required to be happy in FSX, anything less than that list is a compromise IMO, and leads to finding more ways of spending money to achieve what could have been prevented by just buying the right stuff the first time around.

I tried the budget route myself, thinking I could just upgrade in the future, what I wound up with is a killer 'FS9' system that can 'run' FSX. Had I spent another $500-$600 (a lot I know, considering I built my whole system for $650) I could have had a Sysem that would 'play' FSX.

Point is, the economy sucks, and prices of things are coming down in order to increase customer spending, save for the good stuff, and you'll be buying it sooner than you think.

Otherwise, you'll be back here in a few months looking for the same advice.

Let's pick this up in the Over-clocking forum..  There's a WEALTH of data there. Over-clocking is more than just cranking the clock up.

My first guess would be that your RAM might be the problem.. Nick will no doubt steer you in the right direction.

I've got a Q9550 running at 3.6Ghz  (I could go gor 3.8Ghz, easily).

This is a hobby in its own right..  take your time learning and you'll get WAY more out of your computer dollar..

Shane's words are wise indeed.. Piece-meal upgrades chasing FSX performance are costly wastes. If you do indeed decide to go with a faster CPU.. hold off until you can do a full upgrade..  A CPU here, and a video-card there, and you're 1/2-way to a new computer.

I would need to understand what one expects to get and how they wish to get it

The only Quad proc you can upgrade to that may make any difference (assuming other things are in order) would be a Q9650 or you could go with a 9550 but the multiplier will be 8.5 instead of 9

The Q9550 has a base clock of 2.83 where the Q9650 is 3GHz

Both the Q9650 and the Q6600 have a max 9x multiplier

The difference is one is 65nm and the other is 45nm

The Q66 will clock to 3.6GHz max with the right memory and heartsink installed

The Q9650 will clock to just over 4Ghz with the right heat sink and memory

With no clocking the Q9650 would provide a better result however I must warn not to expect any miracles

The key to perf in FSX is setting up the correct CPU/memory speed (and timing) in a proper clock with the right video card

So could you recommend an i7 system (balancing ram, cpu, MB, OS, clock settings) from scratch that would run FSX?

I've done a lot of searching and reading and am surprised there isn't a site out there where people list their systems, and corresponding FPS...   The best thing I've found so far is youtube!  Because you can actually see the quality and many times the system specs are listed, albeit, not the clock settings or the other details...

I would even settle for systems that people have and what frames they get at what settings...

Thanks,

Jon

Nick if you get an extremely good Q6600, is 4.1ghz possible?

Nick if you get an extremely good Q6600, is 4.1ghz possible?

5 is possible


http://www.legitreviews.com/article/924/1/