To cut a long story short I need a second computer for home that doesn't need to be top spec and I'm wondering whether to buy a cheap computer or to buy a new top spec for FS and make my current one the "old" one.The decesion will ultimately rest on whether I can get better FS performance with a new system within my budget. SoI have:Pentium 4 3.4GHz2Gb RAM (2x 1G) NOT DDR don't think256mB GeFrorce 7800GS Graphics cardI'm looking at a new Dell system:Intel

Based on the system your looking at, I'd say your budget is at or over $2k. I recently found myself in this situation but with a 3.0GHz P4. My Newegg shipment should be here on Monday. I decided to go back to building my own since upgrading Dell's isn't the easiest, and overclocking in the bios is impossible. I decided to use a blueprint for a system from tomshardware.com that uses an overclocked E6400 that outperforms the X6800 in all benchmarks. For a video card I got the 8800 gts r, board is an Asus p5b deluxe, memory is 2g of corsair 6400c4d. I've heard from different places that this combination for FSX is very good, and makes FS9 with complex add-ons a real treat. Out of the old Dell system I'll be using the sata hard drives and optical drives. Total spent at newegg was just over $1500 including shipping, and this is for everything needed to build the system except drives. I may eventually purchase new HDD's, but I plan to use the old in raid0 so they should perform well. I also purchased an OEM copy of Vista home, but now I'm getting a bit scared about installing it. All the game benchmarks indicate that XP is FPS superior to Vista by alot. I may wait until the Vista/dx10 patch for FSX is out before installing. As soon as I get the new system put together I plan to post the results here along with detailed component list. Matt

Pretty close to my situation. I guess if you can, wait it out for another few months. Regardless of what you read here at AVSIM about FSX, FSX will be the flight simulation of choice by the end of 2007 (probably by the middle of this summer actually), and FS9 will be nothing but a memory. Microsoft has a weird way of releasing their flight simulator about 6 months ahead of any hardware that is capable of running it the way it is supposed to be run. Here is what you really need to run FSX the way it is supposed to be ran:A fast processor, and not necessarily Duel Core. Duel Core is still probably the way to go, but it won't necessarily help you with FSX. It seems as if many people are getting the Intel E6600 and easily overclocking it to around 3.4Ghz. This is probably the cheapest way to go as far as processors are concerned. That extra core can help you run background programs like weather programs, flight planners, ect...., but it won't help you run FSX any better due to limitations in the program itself. As far as memory is concerned, go with at least 2 Gigs of fast memory (Corsair Dominator 6400@800Mhz should do the trick), and 4 Gigs if you can afford it. No, FSX won't need all that, but you are always better with memory overload for other background programs running with FSX (weather programs, flight planners, flight keepers, background programs, ect...). A DX10 Graphics card. There is only one available today, and that is the Nvidia 8800 GTX or GTS. You need only one of these, so don't be tricked in running two of these in SLI mode. It will not make a difference in FSX. Not yet anyway. Maybe someday. Probably not until FSXI, or beyond.I still use FS9 today, but when FSX gets patched to DX10, bugs are worked out of FSX and how it runs on Vista, and Add-On developers start releasing their upgrades to their realistic planes (PMDG, Level-D, DreamFleet, PIC 737, ect...), you will know it is time to make the jump to FSX. Like I said, MS gets way to far ahead of themselves on their flight simulator releases. FSX will be ready for the plug and play people like me within the next couple of months I am sure. Until then, just wait it out with what you got. You will save a bunch of money, and heartache, and be able to make a much better informed decision about what you want then.So, this may be a worthless post to you, but this is what I am doing.

Thanks for the advice.The reason I was upgrading so soon was cause another computer broke but I've managed to get that back working now for think I will wait it out for a while.