Hi Luke,
I've had a look through that thread and I can see why you are undecided. I'm not familiar with FSX so can't really advise on that front specifically.
I guess my reasoning is the choice appears to be between a low end intel based dual core cpu with HT (albeit pre-overclocked) that 'may' give a performance improvement over an AMD based cpu in FSX.
On the other hand the AMD is a quad core based unit from the upper end of their range (the black edition) which even though it 'may' not be as quick in FSX, would almost certainly be better in most modern games than the i3 and would probably give your system more longevity. I also gather that it overcocks fairly well too, so clock for clock there shouldn't be too much difference.
There are of course differences between CPU architectures that make one or other better at specific games, but typically this usually isn't as big a performance difference as people might suggest. I think we all suffer from benchmark syndrome, where a five percent speed increase seems a massive improvement, but in real life may not even be noticeable.
I know you have posted that you are only interested in playing FSX, but I'd be very surprised if once you have your new gaming rig you don't broaden you games collection. And although relatively few games can use more than 2 cores still, I'd say its a safe bet that most new games will be able to use more.
In my opinion the AMD would give you a more balanced system that would keep you happy for at least a couple of years, whereas I would suspect the i3 CPU would probably get swapped out within a year or so.
I'm not sure we're all helping you make a decision though.....
E-I
