Hello everyone,i am wondering if anyone has used this system and has any comments on performance with fs9.i am thinking ofordering with the following specs:p4 3.4ee,1066fsbx850xtpe (pci-x)2 74gb 10000rpm hd1gig ramwould appreciate any feedback,sure would be nice to fly fs9 with good frames no pauses and maybe sliders a little way to the right.is that possible?thanks.

I think it would rock, it's about the fastest system out there. Please post with your results if you do get it. However, I asked in the hardware forum and a number of informed people suggested that the extreme edition cpu isn't worth it. Here in canada it's an extra $1000 compared to a faster ht cpu. That's a lot of money.I'm pretty close to maxed with my my mid range system, so I would think you could max, or get very very close. Let us know!billg

Yeah of course very poor bang for the buck but a lot of bang. Why not go with a A64 FX 55 winchester or similar instead if you don

Can't comment on the Gen4, but have fairly recently acquired a XPS Gen3 as below through Dell's "Stockroom". It's still not possible to slide everything all the way to the right and guess it won't be for you either even with that spec.That said, I'm delighted with it.I find clouds to be a big hit on frame rates and am sticking to Chris Willis' high frame rate cloud textures. However, I have the cloud sliders turned well to the right, including a draw distance of 70 miles or so. If I put in bigger clouds and put the all the cloud sliders all the way to the stops I'm down to 25 fps or thereabouts.I guess the trade-off is draw distance against cloud quality - I mostly fly jet airliners at altitude and hate the sense that you are on a tiny island of clouds if you set draw distance to 30 miles or so.I have scenery and textures well over to the right, although not quite to the stops and am using 76m mesh.Planes I've been flying recently don't have VC's (IFDG A320 with PSS panel, new Project Fokker F70/100) but when I do use a VC, I'm NOT seeing big frame rate hits. I waiting to get the PMDG 737 and that will be an interesting test.I have frame rates capped at 45fps and am holding that in most circumstances - even at Heathrow in cloudy weather with a lot of AI traffic (mostly Aarvark, some PAI, ARNZ, CDAI etc) I'm above 30 if not in the high 30's.Stutters are a different matter, as are delays in loading textures on change-of-view. I've actually gone backwards from the much less capable system I had before, although the situtaion isn't disasterous. It looks as if you still need to tweak to avoid the stutters - I heven't got around to that yet.I see Dell presently has a free double memory offer (to 2gb on the XPS) on in the UK. I think I might go for that as 1 gb seems to be considered a minimum for FS9 and the rest of your spec is top-of-the-range.

For users of the PMDG and that fly it from the VC, go to the PMDG options and set the refresh rate for the gauges to 3. Your frame rates will jump big time. I have an ATI card and that may be why. Don't know how the NVIDIA cards would do.

That should have more to do with your CPU than your video card though.

thanks for the input,now to decide.

I Have a Dell XPS Gen4, it arrived Friday. My specs are. P4 3.8GHZ, 1GB DDR2 533MHz RAM, Radeon X800 XT, 250GB HD, 19" Flatscreen LCD Monitor.FS9 has sliders ALL the way to the right. At ground level with High density scenery, I get about 20 FPS, by the time I hit 1,000 feet on takeoff, I'm up to my Locked point at 40. If you set the frames to Unlimited, at cruise, you'll be 100+ Easy. I found 40 was smooth as a babies rear end, and I sit at 40 at least 90% of the time.for example, flying a PMDG737, with Activesky2004 with Weather settings cranked, into a SimFlyers airport, I have no trouble at all. You'll be impressed, I'm sure.I'd say go for it, I think what I got is awesome, and don't regret it, no matter how many people say that Dell Sucks, or you could have got something else cheaper. Do what YOU want to do.Good Luck.

Why people say not to get Dell is because if you are buying in the budget segment Dell is cheap but their so called performance computers they overcharge to no end. On this particular computer you can get a faster one for about 1000$ less. If you look at what it cost it performs extremely poor. If so buy a computer from Falcon or Alienware which allows for overclocking instead. Not cheap either but it let you make the most out of the hardware and Falcon guys at least are a bit more competent and allows you to customize your computer more if you just can

See Tony, that's what I'm talking about.

Yup though you should listen to us ;). You can buy it if you feel comfortable with it though you could use all that extra money for something else instead ;)

i truly appreciate everyones views,it does help.i am so disgusted with fs9,all the tweaking,driver changes all of which make no difference for me,at times just want to drive the whole system out the window.i am wondering the difference between the 3.4ee 1066 fsb and the 3.8 800 fsb.between the two,which would be the way to go.thankstony.

>i truly appreciate everyones views,it does help.>i am so disgusted with fs9,all the tweaking,driver changes all>of which make no difference for me,at times just want to drive>the whole system out the window.I hear you Tony. Seems like sometimes I spend more time "tweaking" and reading forums than flying! Makes me appreciate people that buy the console systems. You buy a game, put it in and it works! Truly "plug and play"I too don't understand those on these boards that always say "Dell's machines aren't good" or "build your own" or "buy a $4000 specialty shop system". Not everyone has the time to put together their own system, then waste more time troubleshooting why it isn't working. I consider my time money and I'd rather be doing something more constructive than figuring out why my homebuilt isn't working. At least with a Dell or other direct order machine it arrives, you plug it in and it works. Whether it works with FS9 is another story. That's why there's FS-GS and FAQS pinned to the top of boards like "1001 tweaks for FS9 to run it optimally". Oh well, to each his own..

I've priced the Dell Gen4 several times in the past month. Each time, the price comes out less than $2000 and that's decked out for extreme performance. I've also priced the same components at zipzoomfly and found the price to be around $1700. No way in hates anyone will save a grand building it yourself with the same quality components. You end up saving around $300. Same with Alienware. About a $300 savings building yourself. Not worth it in my book. Buy the Dell Gen4 and enjoy and computer that'll work out of the box without any headaches.

ALWAYS build your own. save money. Dell is a reliable computer but WAAAAAAAY overpriced.