Hi all,I'm deciding on the components for a new PC which will replace my current Athlon 2000XP, Ti4600 128Mb card, 1Gb PC2100 RAM, 40Gb IBM Deskstar. This system will instead run Project Magenta software, FSMeteo, Radar Contact etc.I normally wait until I can double my processing power but I desperately need to separate Project Magenta from FS2004 as it's killing my frame rates. So, slightly earlier than usual, I'm now looking at a new system based on the P4 3.0GHz.Here's the shortlist...Antec SX635BII caseMSI 875P Neo (MS6758) moboIntel P4 3.0GHz 800MHz.1GHz PC3200 (comprising 2@512Mb Crucial sticks)IBM/Hitachi Deskstar 80Gb 180GXP hard drive.Gainward FX5700 Ultra 960 128Mb cardAudigy 22 @ Belkin network PCI cardsLite-On CDR/DVD RoMMS Keyboard & Wireless MouseXP HomeI've had MSI boards for a while now and like them a lot; similarly Antec cases/power supplies.My only grey area is the FX5700 card but this seems a lot better reviewed in the UK computer press than the FX5600. Would you agree this is a decent system and could you suggest any alternative components that would improve performance?I've ruled out the P4 3.2 on cost grounds. Another 100 UKP for 0.2GHz seems excessive. Current 19" CRT displays will be used until one of them blows up at which point I'll switch to TFT :-)Many thanks.

Ray,Excellent decision to use your old PC over a network to run other stuff. I have several running like that and it really takes the strain off of the main FS PC among other things. My spec for the main flight sim PC is below - Antec Plus 1080AMG File ServerAbit IC7-G Max-2 Advance Intel P4 3.0GHz 800MHz FSBOCZ 1GB (2x512MB) PC3500 Dual Channel Series2 X Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB Serial ATA 10000RPM on Raid 0Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 Pro 128MB DDRAudigy 2Network via hubWin XP ProI put together this particular machine a few months ago so it's getting long in the tooth now ;-) I guess it all depends on how much more money you have to spend. Looking at your specs it seems pretty good to me. I wouldn't personally go with the IBM HD - I quite like SATA drives (higher cost though). They will become more common than IDE drives in the future and they certainly run a while lot faster. I would also think about bumping up the speed of your RAM - I know you can pay over the odds for slightly faster chips (as you mentioned regarding the CPU). I am also impressed with my Radeon card. I have Nvidia cards in most of my other PC's but was very impressed by the Radeon when I put together my main FS PC. It seems to have more 'grunt' than the Nvidia's do - although it is an unfair assessment I guess. You'll always find a Radeon vs. Nvidia situation as you well know.All in all I think your new PC will serve you well. A 3GHz CPU with 800MHz FSB sure is nice! I would maybe think about faster RAM - and for me a different HD(s). I very much doubt that you would see a big difference in FS though. This is all just my opinion of course. My main FS PC is the fastest PC I have ever used (I always say that every time I build another one) apart from servers at work - slightly different kinda speed ;-) I hope my waffle helps a little and good luck!Rich.

Hi Rich,Thanks for replying. I appreciate your experience and guidance. I will certainly look into changing the hard drive(s) to SATA. I was reading up about this on Intel's site this morning and it seems to offer genuine benefits as you say. Back to the computer magazines!I was a bit surprised by the cost of PC3200 memory so for you to suggest I go even faster comes as a surprise. How much difference are we talking in pure FS performance? Would I see a reasonable improvemement in frame rates with faster RAM? How about Corsair 512MB XMS 3700 DDR 466MHz? Would that be better or am I looking at Corsair 512MB XMS 4000 DDR 500MHz which is getting very pricey? Is Crucial better or maybe Kingston?I won't be using AA or AF (other than what FS sets itself). My 19" CRT runs at 1280*960 and I'll be flying with no panel visible and a full forward view. Jaggies have never bothered me and when you consider the performance hit I'm even less inclined to favour it. I know the Radeon 9800 is the top card but I find it hard to justify 300 UKP for it. The nVidia FX5700 gets good reviews for half the price.Everytime I replace my flying PC I try to go for the fastest CPU that funds allow. This time though the increased cost of fast RAM and hard drive(s) is also pushing the cost up. I'm in the fortunate position of not having to justify the cost to anyone but myself but I won't buy more expensive items if the cost doesn't justify it. There has to be a sensible balance between cost and performance which is why I won't buy the P4 3.2.Thanks once again for your opinion, much appreciated.Cheers,

Ray,SATA is the way to go if you can budget for it. Since your mobo can take SATA the only factor is price. Apart from the speed difference compared to IDE drives the connectors certainly make for a tidy PC. You'll see what I mean if you choose to go with them. Go for the 10000 RPM drives if you can.As far as RAM is concerned - go with PC3200. MSI recommend Kingston RAM for that mobo. It's not usually a bad idea to listen to what mobo manufacturers say - they usually test it! You won't necessarily benefit by going with anything faster than PC3200 (in FS). Like you said - there has to be a sensible balance. DDR400 ties in nicely with your CPU. Take a look at this link if you haven't already (as recommended by MSI) - http://www.ec.kingston.com/ecom/configurat...&submit1=SearchInvestigate a 'matched pair' (2X 512MB) if possible and use the dual channel capability of the mobo. That'll normally give you the best performance for any speed RAM.The graphics card, for you at least, won't be too important. You most probably won't use the full capability of a 'top end' card. Still, a lot of people cut corners with graphics cards and end up paying for it. You seem to know what you want (been there and done that etc) so I won't waffle too much ;-) The card you chose will no doubt serve you well.It is always a gamble with what will give you the best perfomance in FS. It is as much to do with tweaking as it is throwing horsepower at something. We all know that FS is a law unto itself! Get some half decent components to begin with and you're half way there!Keep us informed!Rich.

Hi Rich,More very useful info! I will definitely go the SATA route. The mags say they aren't any faster than Ultra ATA but the cabling and connections are miles improved. Goodbye master/slave!Also, thanks for the info on Kingston. Knowing 3200 memory will suffice will save quite a bit on the cost. I'll make sure I get matched pairs.I agonised for a long time on the graphics card. I was going to get a FX5600 chipset for a while but then changed my mind after reading the poor reviews. I have been around a while and have yet to buy a bad card but your opinion is welcomed nevertheless.I'm now looking at the Antec Sonata case. That has had good reviews and is very quiet with good cooling fans. Things are slotting into place nicely now thanks to your excellent advice.I'll keep you posted on how things go.Cheers!

Hi Ray and Rich,Allow me to put my two cents in here... I agree with all that Rich has observed, especially the fact that Ray seems to have a pretty good idea of where he's going with the upgrade.Ray... I just put a WD 36Gb Raptor SATA drive in my FS system last week. I had never done a RAID install before, so I was all thumbs getting started. Once I got the beast installed (and all the problems were with me) it has performed flawlessly... and definately fast. I went from a Maxtor 40Gb ATA133 7200RPM IDE drive (may it rest in peace), and application load times are about 30% faster with the Raptor. FS flights load in less than 20 seconds! Another thing about the Raptor is that it has a 5 year warranty (though their new 74 Gb drive isn't as long). Nice drives, well put together, and certainly breaking new performance ground for desktop drives.With regard to memory, I recently upgraded to Corsair XMS PC3200 in my A7N8X 200Mhz system. I wish I had spent the extra few $ and gone with PC3500. I like to overclock, and I can't get the memory to accept anything past 205Mhz. Had I gone with PC3500 it would normally clock at 215, and I could get my FSB higher. If you don't overclock then certainly the PC3200 will work just fine.Cases... alot of folks have the opinion that their case is best, and that's OK. First and foremost I look for good cooling. 92mm fans move more air and are quieter than 80's. Modular construction is important... I want to be able to get that motherboard tray out easily.More important to me is the PSU. I don't buy cases that come with a PSU. I buy them seperately. All too often a case/PSU might have a killer price, but reality dictates that corners have to be cut somewhere. And usually it's the PSU. That's when the problems start. One can only wonder how many computer/application problems could be traced back to a weak/cheap PSU. The top of the line Enermax and Antec PSU are good choices. There are even better PSU's, but of course then it all becomes a matter of how much you want to spend.Hope this helps. Good luck,

Greg,Yeah - Raptor's are cool ain't they? I agree with everything you said. Antec cases and PSU's are the way to go for me. PSU's are often neglected and I was gonna post again pointing that out but you beat me to it. I used to participate heavily in a VA forum and found myself continually giving that advice. Nice post Greg - thanks for filling the gaps!Rich.

Hi Greg,What a good thread this is turning into :-) I'm really pleased I posted details here. I had been considering an Athlon until as recently as this weekend but more reading convinced me the Intel was the better option.Now onto your comments...One stockist I'm considering does have the Raptor and although it's only a 36Gb drive I will only be loading XP Home and FS2004 on it so the relatively small size may not be a problem. However, I was considering RAID 1 for security so that would mean two of them. Given the cost of a single Raptor would nearly pay for 2 Samsung SpinPoint 80Gb SATA drives (7,200rpm) would it make better sense to go for those instead? The Samsung gets the coveted A List award in the UK PC Pro magazine too.I'm unsure about overclocking. I've tried it briefly some years ago but the system locked up and I never tried it again. I understand it's easier and quite realistic to do this nowadays but I'm still reluctant to go down that road. Just call me a scaredy cat! :-)The Antec Sonata will presumably have a quality PSU. It's a 380watt I believe - more than enough for the system I'm proposing. But, I take your point that quality PSUs are often ignored when building systems.So, the one area I'm not sure about is whether to go down the RAID road because of the increased cost. RAID 0 is a no-no. Load speed is not a big issue for me but losing data is. I do perform backups but no as often as I should so the extra expense of RAID 1 could be offset by increased security.Cheers,

Ray,I'll be the one butting in on this one ;-)The Raptor drives are obviously expensive because they are 10,000RPM. We are getting SCSI speeds (almost) at a reduced cost these days. You're obviously worried about losing your data and therefore your best option (as you said) is to mirror. Go for the Samsung - PC Pro are usually pretty cool with their reviews.Antec make good quality well designed cases and good PSU's. You can't go wrong there. Around 400W is cool.Don't overclock then you big wuss ;-) Rich.

Hi Ray,"I'm unsure about overclocking. I've tried it briefly some years ago but the system locked up and I never tried it again. I understand it's easier and quite realistic to do this nowadays but I'm still reluctant to go down that road. Just call me a scaredy cat!"Then the PC 3200 should serve you well."The Antec Sonata will presumably have a quality PSU. It's a 380watt I believe - more than enough for the system I'm proposing. But, I take your point that quality PSUs are often ignored when building systems."Check to make sure the PSU is a TruePower. These are Antec's best PSU's (I've been using a 430 for almost a year and been very happy with it). The "TrueBlue" PSU's are no different... they just have the pretty fans."So, the one area I'm not sure about is whether to go down the RAID road because of the increased cost. RAID 0 is a no-no. Load speed is not a big issue for me but losing data is. I do perform backups but no as often as I should so the extra expense of RAID 1 could be offset by increased security."My Raptor required RAID drivers (I went with the Silicon Image flavor... they work just fine on my MB). Evenso, it's the only drive on my system. Once I figured out what I needed to do (my first time RAID install) it went very well. I went with just the one drive for now, but of course I can easily drop another in later.The Raptor is the best performing SATA drive on the market at this time. I read a few comparisons before buying it, and certainly the Samsung drives are extremely good. I went with the Raptor because of it's large 8Mb cache, high spindle speed, and low seek times. One of the things that impressed me about Samsung drives is that they seem to have an excellant reputation. Can't go wrong with them. What finally pushed me to the Raptor is the 5 year warranty, though at the rate I upgrade I doubt that I'll be using it by then.Probably makes little difference, and the best choice is the one that will fit your needs and budget best. But after living with this drive for just a week, I've become convinced that SATA has a strong future in the desktop arena. More and more folks will be upgrading to the technology as they update their hard drive.Cheers,

Hi Rich,<>Butt away (if you get my drift)! :-lol It's all good stuff!Decisions decisions! I'll kop out I think and toss a coin. As you say though they're both good drives but I suppose I could buy the Raptor and add RAID 1 capability later. That wouldn't be a problem I assume?<>:-lol I was a damaged child. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it :-)Cheers,

Hi Greg,Here's the spec on the Antec Sonata power supply... Looks good to me.TruePower 380Watt ATX12V power supply with single fan design for enhanced quietness.Man, you make deciding so difficult! Why can't you just say one's rubbish and the other's brilliant? :-lol I don't think I'll go wrong with either so it's all down to availability. SATA seems such a good idea it's a pity it's taken so long to become reality.Thinking about this a bit more it makes sense to go for the speed option rather than a slower drive with more space which I'm unlikely to fill anyway. My current 40Gb Deskstar is partitioned 4 ways and there's still plenty of space left. The way to go is definitely Raptor.We're almost there. Just have to find some money now! ;-)Cheers,

Hi Ray,"TruePower 380Watt ATX12V power supply with single fan design for enhanced quietness."That works."Man, you make deciding so difficult! Why can't you just say one's rubbish and the other's brilliant?"OK.. go for the Raptor."Just have to find some money now."Details, details... :-)

Ray,Get the Antec as already mentioned - that's the PSU / case sorted.Get a single Raptor - you won't have raid 'anything' with one drive but the next time you format you could think about adding another drive and mirror or stripe etc.You'll certainly notice a speed difference with your new set up.Rich.

Hi Rich,Get the Antec as already mentioned - that's the PSU / case sorted.As soon as my supplier has some in stock I'll be moving. Unfortunately they're quoting 3-4 weeks :-(Agreed on the single Raptor. I assume that adding another later does not involve anything more complicated than getting two at the outset?Finally, and please forgive me bringing this up - as the FSB is 800MHz would it make sense to buy 400MHz memory rather than 3200 (320MHz?). I know it costs more but does opting for a pure memory multiplier (x2) result in higher performance.Thanks.