I have been holding off upgrading my computer but with the impending release of Intel

Andrew,I'm in the same boat wanting a new system for FSX but why don't you wait until it's released and the hardware requirements become clear? If your current system can run FS9 well enough then you'll get everything cheaper come the winter and there will probably be new graphics cards available.But, if you're intent on upgrading I would recommend a AMD processor over Intel. The Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4800 is the one I'll probably go for. Your choice of graphics card seems fine but it will be cheaper in December and there may be faster ones available by then.Good choice of case and monitor :-)Cheers,

Andrew, I concur with Ray on the AMD path. I switched a few years ago to the AMD platform and it has been a good ride for me with 3D games.The challenge with waiting is that something faster and cheaper will always be about to be released. This is a torture test of patience. Marketing departments have this down to an art form and seem to enjoy it quite a bit too, unlike your bank account :)I recently acquired a set of Western Digital Raptor HDDs and in RAID 1 configuration. The difference of 10,000 RPMs in a data stripe only mode has been stellar. Very snappy scenery load times and overall throughput - FS barely misses a frame, even with complex scenery.Also note that if you are considering an SLI setup, which I would highly recommend, you can now mix/match brands provided that the gpus are identical.EM

The frustration is aways waiting for the next big leap in performance. The reason I am considering the ASUS 775 MB is that it can take the new Intel Duo CPU this seems a cheaper option in the long run as I can upgrade the CPU without having to change the MB. AMD had just changed there socket which means waiting !!! again for a dual core processor that does not cost the earth. This upgrade should see me past the release of Vista and FSX without a loss in performance. Given the speed of the new HDD is there still a benifit in RAID 1? The IT guy at work said it would half the load time.Andrew

You probably mean RAID-0 (striped set). Yes, RAID-0 will significantly improve read/write speeds, but you won't notice a huge performance boost in most games, because most applications are not really heavy on HDD IO. However, if one disk fails, everything is lost, because the RAID array cannot be rebuilt. Never use RAID-0 without a good backup.RAID-1 (mirrored set) will decrease HDD write IO, but slightly increase read IO operations. The biggest advantage of RAID-1 is redundancy. If one disk fails, you have a mirror on the second disk.Good luck.

Re: The AMD/Intel issue.The Intel Core 2 Duo chips (Conroe) due out very soon leap straight to the top of the performance charts above all top line AMD chips.

Re: the AMD/Intel issue: Mac/PC : Linux/Windows : Internet Explorer : Firefox, Java: .NET --- enough for a good conversation next to the fireplace on a cold winter night :)RAID 0 is a indeed a risk, but not that different from having a single disk. I personally favor the speed advantage in FS, but this is to be weighted against the risk for sure!

I am running RAID-0, and I do following...all my important data I save onto my external HDD, which has 300gb, and internal two make 320gb. So my music, work, documents, and some other stuff are just backed up, and still 50gb free on the external. I have no worries if any of the main disks fail, my worries are only what if ext.hdd fails...its a good one though, Seagate.

I run everything on a plain Seagate SATA drive, which is nicely partitioned to suit my needs. The "My Documents" folder points to a Samba Linux server with a RAID-1 array that I built out of old hardware parts. The RAID-1 array is nightly backed up onto an external Seagate drive sitting a few feet away. So, I am protected, if my main HDD fails, if the RAID fails and if one or both computers go up in smoke.Additionally, I have backed up all my FS purchases and freeware onto DVDs.Call me crazy, but I can't and won't afford to lose any data. I had a HDD crash once and lost everything and it won't happen again. It just cost me about $200 for the drives.Pat

Raid 0 is a very big risk. Of all the likely hardware failures you will ever experience, hard drives are #1 and you are mutlipying that risk by ganging them together. Once FS has finished loading,HDD access is very minimal, so RAID 0 makes no sense if this game is your primary form of entertainment.Gary

Agreed. A RAID-0 array usually does not make a lot of difference with FS or any other gaming performance. It'll help you start up the OS and programs faster, but that's pretty much it, unless a programs relies heavily on read operations.