I've had a Q9550 now, for going on a year.. Normally by now I'd be upgrading.. and i7  is the next, logical step.

I've held off, because I've build a few i7 machines for pilots at my club.. and I aint impressed. I've learned slowly (because I'm slow).. that I'll be steering new simmers toward older, fast Qs. As mentioned in another thread, even a $1,000 i7 975 isn't much of an FSX step up from a $220 9550... and needed overclocked to even compete.

Mine (with Nick's help) overclocked to 3.4Ghz with just a couple seconds in the Setup.. and took little effort to get to 3.6Ghz.. and was at 3.8Ghz (but unstable due to my RAM).

The Qs ,  and boards for them, can be had pretty cheap right now... and are far from obsolete.

cantflywontfly wrote on Sep 17^th, 2009 at 12:53pm:


cantflywontfly,

Having just gone through a new build, I understand your concerns. As a matter of information the i7-860 (2.8 GHZ) appears to be an upgraded i7 920 with several features added. Go to intel.com and you can look at a comparison of the two. The cost is the same.  And I can imagine what questions you have. Just how are new generation (Intel i500, i700, i800 series processors) or new AMD products supporting FSX? How, when over-clocked, do they compare with an over-clocked earlier dual or quad CPU?. What performance change is expected from going from a low to top end video card? This kind of information is crucial for selecting the right and/or most cost efficient components for a new build or upgrading a current PC. The best way of acquiring this is from people who reported back how well their new build or upgrade performs. I based mine on a lot of research and especially information from people who built similar systems. My final configuration is listed at the bottom of this post. After spending several months in running different settings, tweaks and, over-clocking, I finally settled on the following. I use these settings every where I fly.

My FSX settings are:
         Everything maxed out (Full Right) or turned on except:
     1. Light Bloom unchecked.
     2. Mesh Resolution at 10M.
     3. Water Effects Low 2.X.
     4. Ground Scenery Shadows unchecked.
     5. Cloud Draw Distance 70 Mi.
     6. Airport Vehicle Density - Low, Road Vehicles 25%, Ships and Ferries 50%,      and Leisure Boats 50%.
     7. My Full Screen Resolution is set at 1920x1200x32.
Tweaks are:
     1. Texture_Bandwidth_Mult = 70.
     2. Bufferpools set to 350.
     3. Buildings and trees set to 6000.
Over-Clocking settings are:
     1. BCLK Freq = 185.
     2. PCIE freq = 100.
     3. DRAM Freq = 1483.
     4. CPU v = 1.39v.
Add-ons are
     GEX, UTX, REX, Orbx Blue, Melbourne AP, Dream Team JFK, and a few      others.

With the above settings my i7 920 PC now runs at 3.72 GHz, performance is great, and flights are smoooooth. You also might be surprised at some of the prices. For example, the cost of my i7 920  ($200.00 on sale) is less than many of the older CPUs. As for performance of the i800 series, I don't have any first hand information since the i800s have just hit the stores (saw them for the first time at Micro Center yesterday) but I would expect them to be equal or better. I did check with newegg,com for the i7 920 and they still have it with free shipping. Also, in my opinion, if you are building a new system, I would not settle for an older CPU.  I hope this information is helpful and good luck with your endeavor.

The following are some screens from my new rig.

Over Long Island Approaching Manhattan at 37.5 FPS

Over Seattle Approaching the Airport at 39.4 FPS

Over the Empire State Bldg in Manhattan at 47.9 FPS

Over RIO at 51.7 FPS

cantflywontfly,

My RAM is Corsair CL8, Latency 8-8-8-24.

Its better to have too much rather than too little power. I selected the 1,000 watt Modular PSU for the reasons you stated and ease of cabling. Further, I wanted to make sure that I had sufficient power for any future upgrades.

Again good luck with your project and let us know how it turns out.

Happy Flying

Flight Ace

You need a triple channel memory kit... which means you'll either have 3gb, 6gb, or 12gb of memory installed...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226032



the CPU cooler... any of these will do:

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/880/1/



Good luck

SubZer0 wrote on Sep 24^th, 2009 at 6:17pm:


actually intel have reverted back to dual channel memory for their latest I7s 

cheers anyway subzero!

Right, its done! its ordered, being buit etc! thanks all for your advice and opinions, ill see you all on the screen shot forums soon 

Deano

LGA1366 processors are tri-channel - these include Core i7 9xx series.

LGA1156 processors are dual-channel, which include Core i5 and Core i7 8xx series.

All Core i7 include hyper threading.
No Core i5 includes hyper threading.

LGA1366 processors need a X58 motherboard.
LGA1156 processors need a P55 motherboard.

They are not interchangeable.

Core i5 = dual channel = P55 motherboard =  no hyperthreading.
Core i7 8xx = dual channel = P55 motherboard = hyperthreading.
Core i7 9xx = tri channel = X58 motherboard = hyperthreading.

Dual channel memory means less memory bandwidth which means less performance. However, on the flip side, you save some money on the motherboard, and memory, and some dual channel processors are higher clocked despite similar price of the processor alone, for example, Core i7 860 is the same price as i7 920, despite the 860 being clocked higher.