>>**EDIT: these arent easy times as far as building new gaming>rigs with huge performance gains over our older>systems..mostly because clock cycles havent improved much at>all in the past 3 years and you will NOT see those huge number>gains over your old system as you once did in past years. If>your tiring of your old p4 3.06 gigger and build a new amd>FX-57 youll see maybe a 50% fps gain on average (even though>that chip is clocked at only 2.8gigs)...Good info. You know, I presently run a P4 1.8 with 512 ram and a GeForce3 Ti 200. I think I will see a MAJOR performance increase in FS no matter what I buy now. Don't you think?I am not building bleeding edge this time so I won't be getting an FX55/57 or the 4400+ like you have. I am having a hard time justifying $335 for a x2 3800+ versus $234 for a 3700+ single core cpu. In fact, based on everything I've read, the San Diego 3700+ will give more performance in FS than the dual-core 3800+ will. Each 3800+ core has half the cache (512kb) of the SD 3700+ (1024kb)

Your comments about SLI are helpful.SLI is another confusing issue; every SLI motherboard I see only has 2 PCI slots. I will only use 2 PCI slots (sound card and modem) but that leaves zero left over..not that I would use them...I guess..Furthermore, if you have 2 SLI cards, and run card coolers on them, I can't see how you would have room to fit the cards in there.

Dave-Thanks for all of the great information!! You have been a major help. It is amazing how much the computer world has changed in the last year or so!! Technology certainly marches on- with or without you. Have a great holiday!John

Hi Mace - yea, i would think upgrading from your current system to something like a 3700 and lets say a gpu like a GF6800GT would definately make a big difference for you at this point..how much, hard to say but i would imagine you should be able to double your frame rates pretty easy. Just make sure to pick a nice motherboard for it too..get something super stable with a good track record and good user reviews from newEgg.com...and make sure your case is nicely sized enough to offer good airflow with some extra case fans installed...dont go for small sized cases as they tend to heat up too much. Thermaltake seems to make some interesting cases that already come with lots of fans installed for you and offer a good assortment of sizes to choose from...Coolermaster is another brand that makes an ok case. Ive always felt that the case and mobo are VERY important whe laying a base foundation for a stable and quick running system and shouldnt be skimmped on.As for the PCI slots, yes youre right...some boards have 3 extra pci slots beyond the SLI stuff but once you get 2 vid cards installed youll probably only get to use 2 slots at best...so make sure you choose a graphics card that uses a single slot (some take up 2 slots because of large cooling fans/heatsinks)...i believe the new 7800GTX 256MB is a single slot solution though. Some SLI boards are layed out better than other so youll ave to do your homework. Some folks say that the DFI board has a nice layout, yet others also like the ASUS boards.2 other things to keep in mind when building SLI systems is that the power supply you choose is CRUCIAL...and so is the memory chips you install. Make sure you get an "SLI Approved" power supply, and try to stick with whatevr memory the motherboard manufacturer suggests for running SLI. If you buy memory from Corsair they sometimes can sell you mem thats specifically been pre-tested to run properly on the exact mobo youre buying for SLI.Keep in mind im no expert, and this is all only my own opinions formed from past experience and lots of reading so your mileage may vary naturally.Hope this helps anyway!Dave

As far as the mb is concerned, I have only ever built systems with Abit, Asus, MSI, and Chaintech. I liked the Abit and Asus boards better than the latter two. I do value the user-reviews on newegg.com.I like to get my power supplies from PC Power & Cooling. They have never failed me in my mild overclocks over the years. I still run one of their cases that I bought in 1998 (I have built 3 systems in that box since then).I get the impression that my 7 year old case will not cut it anymore. It's a PC Power and Cooling steel ATX mid-tower with flat panel sides and thumbscrews. It's a rugged case--you can drive your car over that case and not break it--but it may not have the cooling for today's high temp rigs. It has two spots for cooling fans, but not much vent in the front...I do like the Thermaltake cases and will consider those.I lean against SLI, as I do not play the latest greatest games and do not feel the need to spend $500 on my video subsystem. I'd rather dump the money into raw cpu power as that is what FS likes, going way back.I'm an nVidia guy going back to the Riva128 but the PowerColor ATI X800XL 256 mb for $194 seems very enticing.

>>>As for FS9 and dual core. FS won't take advantage of it>>directly, but other software will. I run AISmooth, FSMetar>and>>FSRealtime while I run FS9 and they use 2nd processor>threads,>>so there is more power avaliable to FS9. You can even set>>affinity (assign explicit processor to a process), but it is>>usually not needed as system manages this really well.>>>>>This confuses me. I was told in another thread that dual-core>won't even help with background apps with FS, such as>FSMetar.>....and that single-core, such as a San Diego 4000+, would be>the better choice. Now I don't know...Advice welcomed!>>Confused RhettIt works like that:Assume you have a dual core processor in your system (not hyperthreading, true dual core. like AMD 4200+).You run FS9 and let's say Radar Contact or Active Sky. FS9 uses one processor (core), Radar Contact (and most system processes) uses another core. Very similar to wideFS connection and other program running on separate machine.Automatically, the system takes care of it. So, basically you have 100% processor power to your FS9. This is impossible on single core machine, just because system processes will take away some processor resources. That's why people run utilities like EndItAll (and for memory reasons).Even if you have faster clocked single core processor in some cases slower dual core might be faster.My explanation is bit simplified, but I believe close enough.P.S. I got dual core not for FS of course, I use 3d rendering appliactions extensively as this is my job and those programs benefit a lot (and I mean a lot) from mulitprocessor systems. I also believe that FS10 is ideal candidate for multi - threaded (do not confuse with hyperthreading) appliaction. ATC, weather engine etc.. may run on 2nd core while main flight engine runs on 1st. It is pure speculation of course.

Yep, it is, as always, a balancing act. A slightly slower dual core or faster single core. You could argue that those related FS programs don't really use that much processing so giving them 1 core with FS using the other may be wasted as opposed to running them all under a faster single core but things may change.I'm personally still looking at single cores for the time being until the speeds of the duals and their price difference evens out a little more. I personally don't need to truly mutli-process for what I use my systems for.And, as said, FS doesn't (at least currently) need a vastly powerful GPU - it's CPU bound. I'm still using a 9800 pro and can run at 1600x1200 with very good framerates on a P4 2.8GHz. Saying that, I'll still be looking at a newer card for my next build for other games (have to anyway since it'll be a PCI-E board)