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FlightSim PC Hardware Information - CPU

CPU Intel(I) Core(TM)2 Extreme CPU Q6850 @ 3.0GHz

My Opinion

The CPU I chose to do the job was very expensive but I wanted the performance now. If you wait another month or two before buying your CPU you could get the same for hundreds of dollars less than I did. This however was a must have piece of equipment for my master plan of displaying FSX with full detail smoothly at the OZ Flight Sim Expo. The 3GHz Quad Core also has allot of room for me to Over Clock the CPU both now and in the future.

Without using after market CPU cooling of any kind I was able to push the CPU to 3.33 GHZ with only a 2-5 Degree increase in Temp. That sort of stability and performance shows that this baby in the future could do allot more, and with after market cooling you might even be able to push the 6GHz mark before to long.

Over all the Quad Core 3GHz Extreme running at 3.33GHz is stable, fast and runs nice and cool.

CPU Cooling and Temperature Information

Current CPU Temp 34C (Unloaded) MB Temp 33C

When your CPU Temp is this close to your MB Temp you know you have the cooling balance right. The MB Temp is a good indication of the ambient Temp inside your case. If these two figures are very close together Then your CPU is benefiting from good case design and management. I will talk more about Case design and Airflow cooling at a later date.

The CPU heat sink and fan that comes with your brand new Q6850 is modest to say the least. At first glance it didn't look like it was up to the task of cooling a Pentium 4 let alone the Raging Beast sitting just underneath it. How Intel keep getting such good performance from there Heat sink and Fan packages I will never know. But this beast runs quite at 60% fan speed with the temperatures I mentioned above.

Amazing performance and that's why for the last 3 years I have only used Intel Chip's in my Custom PC's. I got really tired of replacing AMD chips that couldn't handle the heat and got out of the kitchen. Since the change to Intel I have only replaced my chips when I wanted to go faster in the duo and quad CPU ranges. Plus Intel has left AMD in its wake by getting Faster Clock speeds and Quad Core to the market sooner than AMD. Leaving people like me no choice but to choose Intel when it comes to building Performance Custom PC's.

The Quad Core Advantage

Another advantage about getting the Q6850 was it's a little bit more future proof with its 1333 FSB, other and should do the job for a long time to come. FSB is the size of the pipe in which the information travels. Like plumbing the larger the pipe the more water can flow through it. The same goes for information traveling from your CPU too memory or HD's and then back to the CPU. Which is why its also very important to have a high quality motherboard to keep up with the components you have. That's going to be explained in another article a little bit later on. One more thing, while the price of DDR3 ram is still to high for me to take full advantage of the CPU's 1333 FSB I thought it might be a good idea to get in early just the same. That way I'm ready when DDR3 becomes more main stream.

Compatibility

FSX and Quad Core compatibility is a small issue in FSX. FSX has allot of room to improve when it comes to fully supporting more than 2 processors. I will be sitting back hoping Service Pack 2 will make FSX use all 4 CPU's much better than it currently does. Then we will start seeing better frame rates across a wider part of the simulator.

Round Up

For performance systems like mine you cant go past the Q6850, there is no better CPU on the market and with its room for over clocking this future safe CPU is the way to go in my opinion.

Coming Soon .....

GPU Information and Setup for the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra GTX

By Gavin Gillett

Next Installment: FlightSim PC Hardware Information - GPU