8500 0r q6600

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09-28-2008, 12:24 AM
Mr. Midnight

8500 0r q6600

im thinking of returning my 8500 for a qaud 6600 from newegg , never opened it up, did some research and im deciding on a better set up.

this will be my first time using FSX.

1. should i return it and get the q6600 or stay with the 8500.
2. if i get the Q6600 which motherboard and what kind of ram.
3. im looking to set up system to use only FSX, and i will be using XP pro 32 bit.

4. also im new to this sli vidio card, which one should i get for maximum performance.

5. on this set up i will be adding software, radar contact, weather , atc, wideview etc.

im wanting the main computer to be powerful.

as i said i just got the intel e8500 is it worth sending back or should i keep it and work with it.

6. if you folks say i should stay wuth the 8500. what motherboard and vid card.

i have vista on my laptop and it is possible for me to transfer vista on my new machine and load xp pro , on my laptop.

i have both operating systems .

im just wanting to set up my machine with the best that i can get so i can get back to some seriuos simming, i have been fs9 for awhile and im wanting to start using fsx now that they have cpu,s out there now that can handle it.

i got the 8500 thinking that was the best way to go, but now with the sp1 and sp2 for fsx , i have been told to go quad.

thanks.......Robert
09-28-2008, 02:53 AM
PittsburghLever

Quote:

1. should i return it and get the q6600 or stay with the 8500.

Return the 8500 and stay with the Q6600

Quote:

2. if i get the Q6600 which motherboard and what kind of ram.

Not too sure, but it should not be that hard to figure out. I think you can mostly use the same RAM, but I am not sure. I was considering Corsair Dominator RAM for myself.

Quote:

3. im looking to set up system to use only FSX, and i will be using XP pro 32 bit.

Why not go with 64 bit Vista? If you ever get into a situation where you can get some RAM cheap, you may actually take advantage of that. Granted, right now FS/FSX are 32 bit apps, but think about all the other apps you may have running on your FS box.

Quote:

4. also im new to this sli vidio card, which one should i get for maximum performance.

I was debating myself between dual ATi Radeon HD3870 and dual nVidia GeForce 8800GT (both at 512 MB). I guess Tom's Hardware Guide is going to be the deciding factor for me.

Quote:

i have vista on my laptop and it is possible for me to transfer vista on my new machine and load xp pro , on my laptop.

I am not sure about the legalities in this, but I would assume that since a license for Vista and for XP are for one machine, since you will be switching, it should be ok. I could be wrong, though.

Quote:

i got the 8500 thinking that was the best way to go, but now with the sp1 and sp2 for fsx , i have been told to go quad.

Yes, you definitely want the quad. It is true that FSX now can handle loading on one core while other processing goes on other core(s). This can give some significan improvements, particularly around scenery loads.

Anyway, those were my $0.02. Hope it helps...
09-28-2008, 11:24 AM
WJH308

More cores, the better. Don't forget, theres many background processes and services running in windows while you play Flight sim. Windows will automatically spread those processes onto different cores, lowering CPU overhead for flight sim.