Advice on new system

[Seafit]

I hope to have time to be in the virtual skies again soon so I'm sorting out a spec for a new system.
I was originally going to opt for an Intel i7 930 2.6 Ghz
with 6GB RAM but I mentioned I would use it for Flight sims to the guy at the company who will build it and he game the advice that:

“Flight Sim is a strange beast, it rewards fast CPU core speed but not multi cores.
So a faster i5 CPU would actually give better performance then a similar priced i7.
 
Same goes for RAM it is not relay memory bandwidth limited so a 4GB pack on a i5 will give similar results to a 6GB pack on an i7 just 50% cheaper.”

He was of course assuming I meant ‘MSFS X’ (which I will also use it for) but how does the above statement stack up for AH2. If AH2 would utilise the multi cores then I'd be tempted to still go that route. I seem to remember seeing some discussion a while back regarding Duel Vs Quad core processors but don't know if that information still holds true with the new code revisions.

Another thing was that as I still have equipment that uses the gameport I'm tempted to dual boot the system and use XP for AH2 and Win7 for everything else, I'm not sure if that (OS) has relevance to processor choice when running AH2.

Thanks for any advice or thoughts.
Seafit 

[Tigger29]

32 bit operating systems (such as XP) are limited to 4GB or ram (minus some overhead - usually results in 3-3.5GB), so that extra 2 - 2.5 GB would be wasted.  Now there IS a 64 bit version of XP, but it is very unlikely that is the version you have.

Win7 I'm sure you'll be getting the 64 bit version so you'd be golden on RAM with that.

Aces High is natively multi-threaded which means that it WILL take advantage of multiple cores, however with most games (including AH) you're usually better off with a faster dual core over a slower quad core.  Of course, YMMV.  Believe me, your I7 will be much more than fast enough to handle AH and MSFS X, if you have a decent video card.

I have no experience with gameport devices on Windows 7.  I know USB adaptors exist, I just have never played with this at all.  If Win 7 flat out won't support it, then that would be your only reason for using XP at all with that system, but I'm sure there's a work-around for this somewhere...

[Skuzzy]

With Aces High, a faster clocked dual core CPU will perform better than a slower clocked quad core, from within the same family of CPU's.

[Dragon]

The last system I built was an I5 Quad core 750 2.66 and it was amazingly fast for the price.  The build I did b4 that was an I7 Quad core 920 2.66 for about $100 more and only gave a small increase in performance over the I5.

But, the I7 was built with Vista while the I5 with 7, both 64 bit.


Need ideas?  You can check here to see what I did:

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,284738.0.html

Edit:
I7 build here:

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,273558.0.html

[Seafit]

Thanks for the replies guys, that helps me narrow it down.
Hope to see you 'in the skies' soon.

[Buzzard7]

Windows 7 64bit does not support gameport devices. It may, if you use an adapter but it is hard to find an adapter that will run a CH full setup. I went ahead and bought all new CH gear for my new i7 system.
MSI X58 pro-e
Intel core i7 930 2.8ghz
6gb ram
GTS250 by BFG
2 320gb SATA drives
2 SATA optical drives
Runs all my games at refresh rate of 60hz
AH2 runs 59-60 FPS