Here is the system I am looking at Windows XP Home SP2Seanix CS Saguenay TowerAbit 661FXF-775 MotherboardIntel Pentium 4 640 3.2GHz HT 2MB Cache 800MHz FSB1 GB PC3200 DDR RAM (2 X 512)160 GB SATA HD 7200RPM 8mb CacheGeForce FX6600 128mb w/ TV-Out, DVI PCI ExpressIntegrated 10/100 LANIntegrated SoundKeyboard / mouse / cd burner / MS Works / 1 year warrantyFull price with tax in Canadian Dollars$1,376.55Should this be a decent system for FS9? I would like a Geforce 6800 but it is still very expensive here, and the 6600 still seems to perform well in the benchmarks at Toms Hardware.One question I have is regarding Hyperthreading and FS9. I understand some tweaking is necessary for FS9 to run efficiently on a HT system - could someone explain this? Will it hurt my systems performance?

I came off of a P4, and i reccomend going with a A64 even. The 64-bit AMD's out perform the Intel 64's and also are better in gaming. I think that alone, would be pretty nice. What you have picked looks like a pretty nice system, but i would also reccomend looking at a A64.

I found hyperthread configuration to be pretty painless and straightforward. I have the P4 3.2gHzWhen flying I set FS9 to CPU 0 and all other programs to CPU 1. Default for programs on XP is both. To look for yourself and set, just pull up the task manager (3-finger salute), Processes Tab, Right click on any process that is running under your User Name, and click on Set Affinity. You can specify CPU usage here for any progs you are running while running FS9, but you have to do this every time you run them/There is a little freeware program called imagecfg.exe that I use on all programs that I run with FS9 that sets the affinity permanently. This way I don't have to reconfigure every time I run FS9. Imagecfg.exe does it once and it stays that way unless you do program updates.Cheers,Paul

I would also HIGHLY recommend going AMD64 vs Intel, they are cheaper and have performed much better for the last two years now. Go with a motherboard based on the Nvidia nForce 4 Ultra or SLI chipset. (ASUS, MSI, and DFI all have great ones)

Thanks for the replies, I never saw them because the topic was moved meaning I didn't get any email notifications.I finally ordered the new PC - I switched around the whole setup at the last moment, I think I will be very pleased with this one, here's the main parts of it ...Motherboard - ASUS K8M800M-1 (800mhz FSB)CPU - AMD Athlon 64 - 3200+Memory - 2GB PC3200 DDR MEM (2X1GB)Hard Drive - 80GB SATA 7200RPM 8M CacheVideo - GeForce 6800 128mb w TV-Out / DVI (Geforce 6800 WHOOO HOOO!)

Sounds like you'll have fun! I love getting a new computer and getting it "just right"Paul