best processor?

[Jetflyer]

My 3Ghz P4 truns everything fine, even with 100% traffic at most airports I have not much to complain about. 3Ghz is pretty high though even though
there is 3.6Ghz up...

1GB RAM is a minimum as well, to get the best bandwidth for your processor. FS9 always runs over 600MB on my system. RAM is the bottle neck any way
since it's the slowest part of the system once everything is loaded into memory. The next best solution is an Athlon 64 with its "hyper-transport"
which has the direct link between RAM controller on the CPU itself and the RAM. There is no front side bus so that obviously makes its performance
drastically better. But compare a P4 3.6GHz to a FX55 is price.....for the performance the P4 has more value but the Athlon is for you if you have
more money than sense.

[Sovek]

First, Dual Core P-D's for FS9 are useless and a complete wast of time. Now a bit cheaper than AMD's Dual core its still an expensive space heater.

The reason you should go AMD 64 is several reasons, first would be temp-wise. AMD's will run cool even on the stock Heatsink/Fan, P-4's will not.
Another reason preformance, while there hasn't been any test-beds out there to prove that AMD beats Intel in FS9 the general idea is that Intel beats
AMD, but only by a few frames. However several factors must be considered. Athlon 64 CPU's running on the Socket 939 platform have a technology called
Dual Channel Memory. It works like this. Imagine a 4 lane highway, now fill with a whole bunch of cars and only a certain amont of cars go travel on
that highway at a time. Now widen it to an 8 lane highway and you can push in a whole lot more cars in less time. Howver the drawback to this DCM is
that it requires two identical sticks of memory or it won't work. Another advantage is if you run alot more games aside from FS9 your Athlon 64 is
gonna beat any P-4 to a pulp. Another benefit is that most AMD chips are cheaper than Intel's, unless you go P-D, in which case they are slightly
cheaper, but have quite a few flaws.

[RonMac]

Thals all,

This is the kind of argument I wanted to happen! Its all about options, and thanks to your descriptions I am starting to see what options
are out there.

If I do this, it is really at this point uneccessary from a Sim argument or really any other argument, as my 2.4 + 2GB ram and nVidia 5800
really do it all very well at resonable frame rates.

Still if the gift horse comes around, I will definitley look in its mouth!!

I can 'future proof' for about three nanoseconds!

[Jason]

As far as dual channel....that depends on the motherboard not the processor just to clarify. again the MOTHERBOARD not the processor.

The reason you should go with AMD is because you get more bang for your buck IF you stick with a reasonable chip. if your going to go
dual core, and insane speeds, it's apples and oranges in my opinion.....both Intel and AMD are overpriced and not worth the money. To
stress my point once more, buy a great motherboard that supports SLI and the AMD 939 socket (you can get an SLI compatible video
card for now, and buy a second later to achieve SLI. Currently there are 2 out there, both Nvidia. the 6800 and 7800. It will be worth your
money to go with 2 6800's now if you plan on SLI immediately, or if you plan on future expansion, it will be worth your money now to get
one 7800 and plan on a second in the future. BTW I am an ATI fan personally but have no negative things to say about NVidia.

Don't forget also, some 939 socket motherboards are not athlon 64 or X2 compatible, you must look at that to verify. You should also go
with SATA for hard drive connection, PCI express for video, gigabit ethernet, and a motherboard with additional PCI express slots, they
won't be 16x for graphics, but PCI express is the new PCI and components will soon be more widely available for that than regular PCI.

And order some artic silver thermal paste, you won't regret it.

[Jetsgo]

I have an MDG Intel Inside Pentium 4 with Samsung SyncMaster 710v flatscreen.

[Jason]

To better explain dual channel, please see the following link

http://www.cpuplanet.com/features/articl..._1587771_2

Dual Channel technology is specific to each processor (Intel or AMD). But the technology itself is in the chipsets of the motherboards.
Much better explanation on the webpage.


*EDIT*

This article is by no means current, there are more than likely new products avialable that what's spoken of....but this is a good explination of the root of the technology.



Post Edited ( 01-28-06 09:22 )

[Airliner]

I've yet to upgrade from my Athlon XP2600+ (1.9 GHz)

Highlander, is this the cpu spec or what your sustem is running? I have the same processor and it's running 2.09GHz.

Every little bit helps!