Ok, so the testing continues. Keep the AI off for the moment and reduce the overall texture size of FSX by going to options, graphics and setting global texture resolution to one or two notches lower.
This will really harm your optics, but since we're just testing stuff, it may be ok.

Regarding the traffic, please check again if the 0% slider setting actually did set all AI to off. You can see that in the Views > new view menu where no other aircraft should be available then. So the menu for air traffic shouldn't be there since there is no other traffic.

CPU coolers don't raise fps, they lower temperatures.   So for the fps problem the answer will be no.

Frankly, me thinks that any other investment besides a new grpahics card is, in the case of the fps, just wasted money. A rather cheap GTX460 1GB and your system may run FSX well. No cooler or other AI addon (and money) needed.
By the way, are you sure about your i7 2400 CPU? I'd say it's an i5.
Since this version (without the 'K' at the end) can't be overclocked at all, you don't run the risk of too high temperatures and therefore don't need a special cooler, with that CPU.
I would only change it if the current one is too loud, but make sure the noise is really coming from the CPU cooler, not the PSU or the graphics card.

Your temps from above aren't stellar but way out of range to cause any throttling effect on the CPU's own protection circuits. If you had steady core temps of around 95C the situation would be different.
So there isn't a problem if you leave the current cooler where it is and save some money for the new card.

So boeing247 is lying about his CPU.   Why would he do that?  
(just kidding)
We can accept you regardless of your CPU, really. 

Ah, that info is a lot better. So you have to edit the signature text and you're good.  

Regarding the throttling, gandy is right, but the throttling is supposed to just protect the CPU of thermal damage in the case of either no CPU cooling or a faulty one (blocked fan). For this to happen, a certain trigger core temp has to be reached. If this throttling would set in, you would notice the whole system to become very unresponsive since the cutback value on that protection is huge.
Remember what it's intended for, to safe the life of the CPU at an already hot state (just close to around 95C).
The CPU will lower its clock frequency and most important the power draw by very large margins (Voltage goes down, components go to 'sleep'), since that's the main source of the heating going on in the core.

The Sandy Bridge CPUs also have another protection regarding their Turbo Mode, which is focused on the overall energy consumption of the CPU. Getting above a certain limit will trigger the Turbo Mode to cut back on the raised core clocks, which means that it, in the worst case, just reverts back to default clock speeds.

In conclusion, you won't see any throttling setting in at the temps around e. g. 70C. The thermal protection thingy may be experienced around 95C core temp and the Turbo Mode cutback is only partially dependent on the temps since it watches the Amps in the first place.
Those Amps slightly go up with a higher core temp, but not in too severe ranges. So having e. g. 60C or 65C doesn't make a huge difference for the Turbo Mode.

As said somewhere before (I think on the GPU topic), expect a silicon based electronic device (CPU) to be very happy with temps around 60C. This, in this silicon regime, isn't viewed as 'hot' but more as 'normal'.
I'm always referring to load scenarios here since all the 'idle' stuff will give you way lower temps, because the main focus in that idle state is to consume the lowest energy amount possible. With no energy going into the CPU, it will remain rather cold, just a few degrees above ambient.
Since another aim is to reduce noise in that state, some models also trigger a cutback on the CPU fan (like Notebooks do), which then raises the temps a bit, but also offers a silent or even a completely fan-free experience.

At Desktops, the fan off mode is rare though, but they normally reduce the rpm to keep a certain airflow active. If you would block the fan with your fingers and wait for those mentioned 95C, you would see how the thermal throttling behaves.
Not recommended, but nowadays not even close to be as dangerous as in the old times, where a broken fan and no temp monitoring lead to burning hot silicon.

If you were up for overclocking your CPU (which isn't possible on the models without 'K'), a bigger cooler would give you some headroom and would therefore make more sense. With your CPU model, it's rendered to be useless, unless you would be annoyed by the noise of the current thing.

Boeing,

We are talking about the same pc now as I have and should run FSX well.

You only have an ATI 6450 while I have the ATI 6870. When i'm on a payware airport like ELLX from another company i get around 30 frames with a nice real world weather theme and alot of clouds with a very wide view.

When I take of to cruise alt between FL300 and FL350 my FPS is around 80-100 (depending on the aircraft) When I fly the 707 i have lower FPS then when on 727. Did you try another aircraft for your flights see if that improves the FPS?

Also, what programs do you have running in the background? Are you playing with IE or FF during flights?

Also, look in your config panel and your Power Options. Make sure it is on high performance.

Also, make sure all your drivers are up to date. You can download a very handy tool on the AMD site to automatize checking if you have up to date video drivers and will update when they are not updated.

Also run the automatic updates for Windows.

Last but not least, do you run FSX with SP2? 

E.

I don't know if you should choose NVIDIA. When i check the Dell website for our model and I build up the configuration I created on their site, i can upgrade the videocard without getting any warning of insufficient power supply.

when you do the same on Alienware (Dell site) you will get this warning to upgrade your supply.

In the Netherlands the Dell website shows both cards listed available for your machine (and ofc mine) so it's either way what your feeling say. They say that Nvidia is good for FSX, but in general ATI shows good results lately in overall business.

What i do recommend is if you buy either one of the cards, order it at Dell because then you will know for sure it will work. Also out of warranty perspective it probably is better.

Awesome. The only reason I was considering NVIDIA was some people were saying that you get higher frame rates, but if AMD is fine, I'd rather go with that. Thanks!