Well I am upgrading, but not quite the whole thing. My current config:AMD Athlon 2400+1G ram (PC3200)FX 5900 I can either upgrate the CPU or the Vcard. If I go with CPU I'll get AMD64 3500+, if Vcard, X800XL maybe. Which one of these two options will give me a bigger boost in FPS?Thank you.Jason

Hi Jason,Depends a bit on what resolution you run at and what display settings you would like to use. In general, FS9 scales more with CPU than with video card (i.e. upgrading your CPU would lead to bigger performance gains than upgrading your video card). Note that the opposite is generally true with other games so if you do things other than FS9, you may want to upgrade your video card instead.Incidentally, what motherboard do you have? Judging from your CPU, I'm guessing nForce 2? If so, in order to use the Athlon64 3500+, you may need to upgrade your motherboard as well (not sure about that... you should check on the CPU compatibility list posted for your motherboard on the motherboard manufacturer's Web site).Hope this helps.Edwin

Edwin thank you for your reply. What I eventually purchased are the followings:AMD 64 3200+ Venice core 939ASUS A8N SLI deluxe moboeVGA 6600GT PCI expressI checked the lastest vcards and they are all PCI express, so I figured I'd build a system that I don't have to throw out in a couple of years. So I gave up AGP and jumped to this mobo, well that makes me have to get another card. The 6600GT is better than my 5900 yet not too expensive now. I went with the 3200+ to save some money. It was a good deal I found...$155.00. Ideally I'd want a 3700+ with 1MB L2 cache.So the total cost is $480.00 and for that money I think this combination will give me the best overall boost for the sim for now. And I do hope it'll give me what I want for FS9, which is a solid and smooth 24FPS at about all time. (I go fancy with addon aircrafts but not so much so with sceneries). Until FS10, I hope I'll be all set.Jason

Jason,Good choices! Be careful about the ASUS motherboard: I have the A8N-SLI non-deluxe version and the earlier revision boards (both non-deluxe and deluxe; only the Premium versions are not affected) had defective chipset heatsink-fans. After a while (about a month), the fan would make weird loud noises and then eventually die. I replaced mine with a Zalman heatsink (no fan) and it works wonders. Alternatively, you can call up ASUS and they will send you a new heatsink-fan (that doesn't eventually die) for free.The way to tell if you have a defective unit is to check whether the heatsink-fan combo is at an angle to the base of your motherboard. If it is parallel (i.e. square with the chipset), you have a defective heatsink-fan combo. If it is at a 45-degree angle to the chipset, then you're fine.Good luck and enjoy your new rig!Edwin

******* you know everything!!! Yes I've read about it. I am calling the retailer to change my order to the "Premium" version, which uses a heat sink instead of a fan.Thank you for your note.Jason