Hi folks, I have only about $700 max to spend on a new system but I'm not sure what to get. Can any of you suggest a system that would run FS2004 with decent fps :) and that would fit my budget? I'd like to go for AMD + Nvidia. Thanks,Leo PS- I'm in the US, and wouldn't mind to buy the whole thing online.

Hi Leo,Please see my post here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=11500&page=Donny has a similar budget and I gave him some pointers there that should be helpful to you too.If you have other questions, please post on here again.Good luck with your purchase!Edwin

Hi Edwin, Thank you for pointing out your other post. I've built my current computer a while ago (it's an old P3 800 + GF3) but I'm not up to date with the new technologies, that's why I'm kind of lost. I'll take the value system on sharkyextreme and use it to base my purchases. I still have some questions: The article at sharkyextreme says that the performance of the AMD 3400 exceeds the AMD 3500, and it is on par with the 3700 and 3800... How is that? I saw that the 3400 and 3500 both have almost the same price in many sites, should I get a 3400 then based on the article's review? Does it make a big difference having dual channel 2x512 MB vs. having 1x1GB? Is there any effect on FS2004 performance by having a 128MB video card instead of a 256MB one? Thank you very much for your help! Leo

Hi Leo,Sorry, I must admit I overlooked this aspect of the system (didn't read carefully that the 3400+ is socket 754). As you may have read on my other posts, both sockets 754 and 939 will be replaced in the next 12-18 months by a certain socket M2. However, socket 754 is likely to go first and then socket 939 will replace socket 754 as the socket for budget CPUs. Thus, socket 939 will have a slightly longer life than 754 but both will eventually be replaced.Therefore, the answer to your question depends on what your plans are. If you think there's a possibility you may upgrade the CPU in the future, getting a socket 939 motherboard (and a socket 939 CPU, obviously) may be better to open up more upgrade options. If you think you are unlikely to make minor upgrades and would simply replace your CPU/motherboard altogether when you next upgrade, then you could go for the socket 754 3400+ given its value for money.If it were up to me, I'd get socket 939 even if it means getting a slightly slower CPU. Such small differences in clock speed are unlikely to make much of a difference to the overall speed of your computer anyway.As for your other questions, yes, use dual channel wherever possible. And for video card, I generally believe that the speed of the GPU (i.e. GPU family, clock speed and memory speed) greatly trumps the size of the texture memory of a card. So if your question is, should you get a slower card with more memory vs. a faster card with less memory, I would go for the latter. However, if you are compare two cards with the same GPU but with different memory sizes, then of course, the more the better.Hope this helps.Edwin

Edwin, Thanks for your help. I'll probably go for a AMD 3500+ and a Nvidia 6600GT + a 120GB HD. I still have a question: I saw a computer case on sale and it has a 350W power supply, would that be enough for this setup? What's the minimum watts I'd need? ThanksLeo

Hi Leo,350W should be sufficient for your needs right now. Any idea what brand the PSU would be? The brands to look for are Enermax, OCZ, Antec, PC Power & Cooling, and Zalman although given your budget, it's a bit doubtful you would get such brands.Good luck! Please post here again if you have further questions.Edwin

Hi Edwin, Thanks again for your post. It's actually a generic case, the PSU comes with it. It's on sale, and the price fits my minute budget :) This is the system I'm thinking of building: AMD 3500+ Processor Asus A8N-E MB 1GB Dual DDR (Samsung or Corsair) GeForce 6600GT 128MB XFX 1 x 120gb HD I did some researching on the web and this configuration seems to fit my budget. All the other stuff(keyboard, CD-ROM, monitor, etc) I'll be using from my old computer. One more question: As far as FS performance, is it better to have 2 HD's instead of a single one? Thanks,Leo

Hi Leo,What exactly do you mean by 2 hard drives? If you have two physical drives not connected to each other, then it won't make a difference as FS9 will just reside on one drive and it won't know the other drive exists. If you're talking about "connecting" those drives together via RAID 0, then no, there shouldn't be any performance gain.Hope this helps and good luck with your new rig!Edwin

Well.. I finally did it. I bought all the parts yesterday. I streched my budget a little, and it came at around $798 after some mail-in rebates and putting part of it in a CC. I know I'll probably blame myself later on, but... :) I decided to try to future proof a little my system so I went for the A8N-SLI Premium MoBo that can take up to the Athlon X2 if I decide to upgrade the CPU later on, maybe after FS10 is released! I got the Athlon 3500+ for now. For the Video Card I went for the 6800 GT 256MB so that I can get another one of the same later on and connect them in SLI mode. I got mine for around $250. Hopefully more programs(next FS!) will take advantage of SLI in the future. I hope I haven't overpaid for this setup... but again, I got all the parts from the same vendor which saved me on shipping and the prices seemed to be within or below the average in many other sites. Now something started to bug me... I know the video card I got is a DirectX 9.0c card, so, when MS releases DirectX 10 will I have to get a new DX10 card to run DX10 applications? I'm guessing FS10 will use DX10. Edwin, thanks again for your help!Leo

Congrats on your new system! I always get SO excited when I get new parts. Hee hee... BTW, just wondering: did you build the system yourself? I've actually been quite interested in Macs lately (after getting a Mac mini earlier this year) but one thing that has bugged me immensely is that Macs come pre-built! Building the machine is a big reason why I buy new parts to begin with! ;)Anyway, on to your question. I'm not too familiar with the technical details but I don't see how a card (hardware) could fail to work with a piece of software provided the card has the relevant drivers to enable the hardware and the software to talk to each other. In other words, your card is a "DirectX 9.0c card" (I don't think there is such a thing to begin with) only because its current drivers are compatible with DirectX 9.0c. When DirectX 10 comes out, your card should continue working as long as NVIDIA releases new drivers for DirectX 10 (and it should!) In short, let's worry about DX10 when DX10 comes out! ;)Enjoy your new rig!Edwin

Hi Edwin, Yes, I'm building it myself, it should be here on Friday. It'll be a big jump from an old P-3 800! About the DX 9.0c, I was refering to this chart: http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20050524/index.html It says "DX Generation" and lists the 6800GT as being a DX9.0c. That's why I was wondering if there'll be new "DX 10 generation" cards in the future and if the "old" 9.0c cards will not be able to run all the features of DX10. Oh, I got another question(sorry!) about the PSU: What might happen if the PSU is not good enough for these components? Would the computer freeze? won't boot? The video card says a minimum 350W PSU and that's what I have. I'm probably worring too much. heheLeo

Leo,On the PSU, any number of things could happen if you don't have sufficient wattage. In the more extreme case, yes, your system may not boot because the video card does not have enough power. That is somewhat unlikely but still possible. In fact, that would be the more "desirable" scenario as at least you have some idea what is wrong. The worse scenario (and actually, more likely) is that your computer boots fine, perhaps even goes into Windows without a problem and then when you go into a 3D-intensive game or benchmark, it hard freezes or blue screens.As I have mentioned many times before on this forum, I place less emphasis on the actual wattage. For example, some of the Shuttle XPCs have power supplies in the 200-250W area and many people have built very stable machines out of those. It's the QUALITY of the PSU that really counts and there's no easy way to tell, which is why I urge people to go with the brand names one can trust.In short, even though I do constantly emphasize the importance of not skimping on the PSU, I think you're worrying a bit too much - let's just see how things go once you've built up the system.Edwin

Just got everything and built my system over the weekend, it runs great and the system seems to work fine. I did a lot of stress testing too and no problems so far! Just one problem regarding FS2004 and the 6800GT... the infamous shimmering... I made a post on the other forum about it: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=11384&page= Thanks again Edwin for answering my "last-minute" questions! :)Leo