Bought a new rig yesterday despite the inherent risk of hardware before software release (Vista and FSX). I figured I'd be pretty safe and really wanted to max out FS9 with ASv6, Ultimate Terrain, BEV, max resolutions etc in the interim--besides it was compliments of the IRS! I'll let you know how it all pans out in a couple weeks and pass on lessons learned if interested. KemoF15new rig: AMD Athlon 64 FX-60/NVidia nForce 4 SLI x16 Motherboard/ATI Radeon X1900XTX 512MB PCI-Express/Corsair XMS ultra low latency 2GB RAM at 400MHz/Raptor 150GB Hard Drive 10,000rpm w/16MB CacheThe new Athlon 64 FX-60 has the highest benchmark rating of any CPUThe X1900XTX video card is rated the fastest along with Nvidia 7800GTXRaptor 10K 150GB Hard Drive is likely one of the fastest 1.5Gb/s

holy shhhhhh ;) i had probably gone for the X2 4800+. cant imagine the framerates. now you need some emagin z800 hud and the trackIR. what did you pay for the whole system ? cant be that cheap :)regards, tom.

Went with Alienware based on consumer reports/ratings and overall quality. With shipping it was $3990. You can find all the same components and package at different "discount" sites for about $2-300 less but they took hits on customer satisfaction. Alien will optimize video performance and each system goes through extensive burn-in and quality control. My biggest concern is heat but alien assures me that their alienice and acoustic dampening will do the trick...we'll see. I'd be interested to hear from anyone out there who's running a similar rig and how it handles FS9/add-ons etc.I believe I read a report where the combination of an Athlon FX-60 CPU and the X1900XTX video card achieved sustained 150FPS in Doom 3 at the highest resolution settings. I'm really curious what I will be able to achieve on FS9.As with any hardware purchase, in 6 to 12 months there will be better/faster stuff out there but I reckon this system ought to hold its own for a couple of years and pay itself off with hopefully seamless performance.Takes 3 weeks to get the system...I ordered Radar Contact 4 a week ago...hopefully that will make it before the computer. ; )KemoF15

Hey Kemo. I just built a systme pretty close to that. Same processor. I went with dual 7800 GTX cards, and 2 gig OCZZ ram. I am pretty happy with it. I think i always imagine that a system like that would run FS9 at a constant 50 fps but of course my expectations are too high although i do get a solid 32-35 with all the panel addons but amazingly that clouds like in active sky can ALWAYS bring any system to its knees. Doesnt happen too often with my new system but it can bring those fps down to 15 for short intevals.

Thanks...I'm not anticipating a quantum leap in FPS but a nice one from the average rate I'm getting right now with my current system (Athlon 64 3200/2.5GB DDR RAM/ATI Radeon 700XL 256MB/and a generic 150GB HD) which is around 30-35 but sliders are set at a conservative level to get that. I'm hoping I can max sliders and get the same frame rate with the new rig. Additionally, it will be a setup I hope will carry me through vista and FSX (actually I think performance will improve with FSX.I also play Battlefield 2/Call of Duty 2/ and this is where horsepower will make a huge difference if the benchmark reports are accurate.Kemo