I'm about to order a high-end PC for our office, to be used JUST for flight simulator.Looking at Dell XPS or Alienware 7500... with Core Duo 6700, 2MB RAM and a 768MB Geoforce 8800GTX video card. Both systems are similar price (

I have a year-old Dell XPS 3.2GHz Pentium IV with 2G memory, XP OS, loaded with both FS9 and FSX, although I've only sampled FSX. All my FS9 add-ons work seamlessly (PMDG w/ Active Sky but not Active Camera).I'm not going to go to Vista until it offers an advantage over XP. Besides my compulsive flight simming, I also use the Dell for what is to me a very critical use: My bookkeeping. I need a reliable platform so I'm not willing to experiment.Everything on my 80G 10,000 rpm system harddrive is automatically backed up to a second harddrive with Norton's Ghost. This system works very solidly for me. I'm not happy with Dell but I think they will improve since they fired their last CEO and brought back Michael Dell. I have framerates set to 30 fps and generally have no problems.Hope this helps.

>I'm about to order a high-end PC for our office, to be used>JUST for flight simulator.Where in the world to you work?! Or is this not the type of office I'm thinking about.Ryan GamurotLucky to live Hawai'ihttp://www.virtualpilots.org/signatures/vpa296.png

Look under his name Ryan.

Thanks Mike. I knew that too. I just didn't put 2 and 2 together.Ryan GamurotLucky to live Hawai'ihttp://www.virtualpilots.org/signatures/vpa296.png

If it makes you feel any better, it took me multiple times reading his post to understand why you were asking that question.:(

Yes, perhaps I should have explained why we're getting a flight sim PC for an office! Our office staff of are all enthusiasts (pilots and non-pilots) but unfortunately we don't all get to fly the full-motions sims too often (due to the cost!). The flight sim PC is going to be an office toy and a thank-you to them for exceeding targets.Also, most of our 'fun flight' customers (and even some of our training customers) use FS and ask for advice about which FS add-ons to buy, so it's useful (and rather fun) to be able to carry out the necessary research!Thanks for the replies...

If you plan on going to do any self support any asny possible future expansion, I would not go with Dell for a highest performance machine. They use quite a few non-standard components, as do some other consumer/business packaged self-manufactured pc makers such as HP, etc.If you need Dell support and wish to limit yourself to them then it might be the proper choice for you.I believe Alienware and several other packagers for gamers use off-the-shelf components that make it easier to upgrade and provide easier replacement parts like power supplies, etc. If you can use a screwdriver and do driver upgrades this might be a more satisfying route for a high performance machine.

Thanks for the advice! Have just order the following system:ALIENWARE Area-51