I am trying to find out which processor would be best for Microsoft Flight Simulator X, either Core 2 Extreme X6800 or Core 2 Extreme QX6700? Is the answer likely to change if and when a new version of MS Flight Simulator is released? It would be matched with a GF 8800 GTX and 4GB of DDRII 800 CL4 ram on either of an Asus Commando or Asus P5N32-E SLI running Vista x64 Ultimate. I would also appreciate advice on which of the motherboards to go for.

Holy crap; and you need all these goodies to run a MS Flight Sim. nowadays?!?!? with these requirements :
* PC with 1 GHz equivalent or higher processor
* 256 MB of system RAM for Windows XP SP2 / 512 MB Vista
* 32 MB DirectX 9 compatible video card required
I still have a Jane's WW2 fighters of 1998; it looks great and is played without problems even on a P3
The difference of the XE6800 vs a modest A64 3500+ would be something like 400 vs 200 FPS and I challenge you to feel it without a FPS counter.

Holy crap; and you need all these goodies to run a MS Flight Sim. nowadays?!?!? with these requirements :
* PC with 1 GHz equivalent or higher processor
* 256 MB of system RAM for Windows XP SP2 / 512 MB Vista
* 32 MB DirectX 9 compatible video card required
I still have a Jane's WW2 fighters of 1998; it looks great and is played without problems even on a P3
The difference of the XE6800 vs a modest A64 3500+ would be something like 400 vs 200 FPS and I challenge you to feel it without a FPS counter.

Totally disagreed. FSX is immensely CPU-bound and requires the most powerful CPU possible (it is, after all, dominated by physics calculations). I'd say the QX6700.

I'm sorry for that reply then, but those specs I saw on the website were too misleading, however, don't know at what point it is about physics; not sure it requires a top chip.

FSX as it stands now doesn't support additional cores:

http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_096d.html

Then for only FSX, the X6800 would be better.

m25, the specs are immensely misleading. I'd say they've just short of lied to people to make them think their systems will play it well at the upper visual qualities.

I think your best bet is to wait and see how much better things get when they patch fsx for dx10. In theory running in dx10 could seriously improve framerates but it's impossible to know till we see it in action.

Also like you mentioned, if they add multi-core support at some point having a quad core would be your best bet.

FSX absolutely requires the best. On my system (X2 4800+ and 8800 GTX) i get between 25-35 fps at 1280x1024 w/ 4x AA.

It's a hog.

MS should have added support for ageia PhysX or multitheaded or something because low frames on an uber rig with a flight sim seems kinda ridiculous to me...

PS. Jesse, how many FPS you think i would get at 1280x1024 or 1024x768?

Also, is your cpu overclocked?

Since someone pointed out it's not going to take advantage of quad core I'd pick the higher clocked and more overclockable X6800.