CPU upgrade, limited knowledge, help please!

[S7uyj87]

Hi all, hopefully there is someone here who will be able to advise on this.
I have a pretty basic motherboard that in looking to upgrade as cheap as possibly to run flight sim x or 2004.
Running a nvidia 8800 gts
Currently has a pentium d 925

These are my options for new processors based on the compatibility of the mobo

Core 2 duo, up to E4300. Conroe
Pentium d, up to 960. Presler
Pentium 4, up to 661. Cedar mill
Celeron d, up to 365. Cedar mill
Celeron d, up to 355. Prescott

Opinions/ advice?
Thanks, stu

 

[RhysGittoes]

To be honest I also have FSX and I really enjoy it but your motherboard seems to be out of date. I was in your posistion and i decided to buy a Z77 Extreme 6 mobo with the i5 3570k processor ... now my game are crystal clear... the price of these two would be 160 pounds. If you want to keep your mobo all of these processors are good.

 

[rayy1212]

I'm pretty sure the best CPU out of that list is the core2duo you should notice an increase in performance

 

[apache_lives]

if it supports an E4300 it will actually work with any E4xxx series Core 2 duo (E4600+)

if you want gaming performance none of those processors or your video card are up to spec, dual cores are dead and 8800 series video cards will barely run anything these days

 

[S7uyj87]

Thanks all, not looking to spend money really, to be fair it currently runs fsx well enough for what I need so any improvement is good really, just wasn't sure if there was a massive difference from the pentium to the core 2's. as for general gaming, I won't be playing any other games on there so doesn't need to be up to modern gaming standards really

 

[Murissokah]

A Core 2 Duo will be significantly faster than a Pentium D. The latter is based on the old Netburst architecture, which was discontinued with the release of Conroe and the Core microarchitecture.

Changing your motherboard will require you to buy new RAM too if you are using DDR2.

You didn't tell us what motherboard you have, but if it supports Conroe it will probably support a Q6600 too. I believe that would be the most you can get out of that motherboard. The E4300 is a cheaper alternative and will be faster and cooler compared to the D925.

I don't know much about FSX but I've read that it is CPU intesive, so that upgrade will probably improve the game noticeably.