I purchased a nice little system from Falcon North-west two years ago, and now its pretty much obsolete. So it looks like it's time to buy a new system. I know pretty much next to nothing about PCs, except how to launch FS9. I don't know how to put a system together, and quite frankly, don't want to know. I just want to customize it on screen, and give them my credit card. So I would like to get the next system from Falcon as well, since they have been nothing but most professional. The new system I would like is, I think, pretty much top of the line:ASUS A8N-SLI deluxe moboAthlon 64 FX-55corsair twin-x 2048 mb 3200nvidia 6800GT 256 mbI think I just selected the best of every catagory (cept for vid card). I still would like opinions on this, and do I need two HDs? the whole thing is around $4000.00. I'll spend more if need be. With all the addons I use now, my frame rates are in the single digits, and thats with the sliders mid-range. But what fun is having the sliders at mid range? I would like to go full right! So I would like to speed things up, as it were. So if anyone sees some errors in my ways, I would appreciate some guidance. My main concerns are:company? is alienware any better than falcon?amd vs. intel1 hd vs. 2 hd?I know mem. sticks are tricky... corsair vs. crucial?anything else I forgot? thanks again to all the knowlegable people out there.B. McG

2 hdds would be good for setting up a raid for either speed or backup. I prefer crucial.

Good system so far...would suggest using only one card on this SLI board at the moment...FS9 does not benefit from the SLI feature for the time being.Btw...a roundup of SLI boards at AnandTecLink: http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2358Another system builder, that sell at a much lower price then Falcon North-West with similar quality...ABSPC (uses only high-end brand name parts...Asus, Thermaltake, Lian-Li, Corsair, etc).Link: http://www.abspc.com/

checked out ABS and was shocked at how much cheaper it was (around $1200). They seem like they know what they're talking about. I had a few questions: I know that FS doesn't benefit from two vid cards, but what about in the future, and would FS be a bit faster with a RAID 0 setup rather than just one HD. This is what I priced out at ABS:Antec 550W power supplyASUS A8N SLI deluxe NVIDIA nForce4 chipset moboAMD Athlon 64 4000+1GB corsair DDR PC-32002 nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra 2562 seagate 160 gb HD1 hitachi 400 GB hdthe rest of the usual crap$3690.00again, this is for 2 vid cards and three hard drives. I have heard that with the SLI, you need to get two cards at the same time, rather than buying one now and then one in the future...opinions anyone? thanks

Why wouldn't FS benefit from 3 vid. cards? What happens with 2 vid. cards and say 3 or 4 monitors?JimCYWG

SLI is only as good as your processor...i've seen FX-55's bottleneck 2 6800u's...IMO i'd wait before i got a SLI rig, they just dont have cpu's than can unleash full potential from them yet.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v725/Racalac/siggy.gifhttp://www.pic767flyingclub.com/siggies/lsd1.jpg[bold]Specs:AMD 64 4000+Gigabyte GA-K8N SNXP9391.5 GB Samsung DDR400ATI X800Pro->XT2x WD 74 Raptors etc,etc,etc :(

Hi, I wonder with the current spec you have in your signiture, what fps do you get in fs(please state the display settings and addon used), thanks!

well, I think you're right. by the time the next version of FS comes out, this system will be outdated anyway, and that's just the way it is. so I'll go with only one vid card. does anyone else out there have any knowledge of ABS? I already called them, and like I said in my previous message, they seem like the real deal, except I'm just curious how much cheaper they are than falcon...bmg

ABS makes good rigs. I know 2 other simmers that swear by them and from what I have seen, they seem to know what they are doing.I agree, the SLI tech is not going to make a huge difference in FS, but will in other games. I'd probably go with the same CPU, the X800 for FS (the Nvidia cards anti alias the clouds which kills the performance, ATI doesn't) and get 2 WD raptor 10,000 rpm drives in a Raid 0 config.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International