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Hi,3 words: wait, wait, wait.Hope this helps,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://dot.kelder.net:8080/fseconomy/

I agree with Jim.If you are upgrading to use FSX, it won't be out for months and things will change, ie prices, especially after Christmas.Save your money for now, as better bargins are sure to come.Ed

Intel release their Core 2 chips this week, and the word is they're faster than anything previously available.Wait!Cheers,Noel.

I'm in the process of upgrading myself. I hear the same thing evrey time I go to upgrade - Wait - Wait - Wait - If I did that, I would never have a system. With computers there is always going to be a faster chip released next week. I believe you buy the best you can afford at the time. I purchase a computer 2 years ago and everyone said to wait. Well that computer is still top end and gives me great frames. Now I have the chance to upgrade again, so I will. (Sorry, I don't mean to sound too negitive to the other posters about waiting, it's just my view as I've heard this song and dance before, Christmas is a long ways away to a simmer!) As for the opperating system, I am taking windows home off my older system (not the flying computer, but surfing one) and letting them use that. I can't see the sense in purchasing yet another copy of Window's when I know I will be upgrading to Vista in Feb.Kittie

There is never a good time to upgrade, but sometimes it might be wise to hold off. For example, if you had upgraded your AMD CPU last week, you would have paid 50% more for it. That can be easily translate into hundreds of dollars of savings.But, I agree that it is completely unnecessary to wait for new technologies that have not even emerged or wait for things that are yet to come. If you want to upgrade now, then you can always do so. But you have to keep yourself informed and do some good research before going out and buying the next best thing.Sometimes manufacturers want to make us believe that we absolutely need those new bleeding edge technologies. DDR2, for example, is right now utterly useless and some ordinary DDR400 beats almost any DDR2 in the current benchmarks. Will I eventually get a DDR2 system? Sure, because in a few months you won't even find a DDR mainboard. Just because there is a "2" behind it, doesn't make it twice as fast. AGP/PCI-E is another example. SATA/PATA another.There is a fine line betweeen a 'reasonable upgrade' and an 'impulse upgrade'. I usually follow the former and ask myself constantly "what is the best price/performance ratio for my system". Will this upgrade show me the desired increased in performance?I try to stay in the mid/high range with my upgrades - not bleeding edge, but relatively mainstream while staying reasonable and I usually spend about $600 each year to upgrade my components.Hope this helps,Pat

>I'm in the process of upgrading myself. I hear the same>thing evrey time I go to upgrade - Wait - Wait - Wait - If I>did that, I would never have a system. With computers there>is always going to be a faster chip released next week. I>believe you buy the best you can afford at the time. I>purchase a computer 2 years ago and everyone said to wait.>Well that computer is still top end and gives me great frames.> Now I have the chance to upgrade again, so I will. (Sorry, I>don't mean to sound too negitive to the other posters about>waiting, it's just my view as I've heard this song and dance>before, Christmas is a long ways away to a simmer!) As for>the opperating system, I am taking windows home off my older>system (not the flying computer, but surfing one) and letting>them use that. I can't see the sense in purchasing yet>another copy of Window's when I know I will be upgrading to>Vista in Feb.>>KittieLet me add my voice to Kittie's:Do not wait! Buy what you like now... You will never get "the best deal" ever.I bought a "top of the line" G7800 MyVivo Extreme (way OCed out of the box) a while ago and thought "finally" I might get a few month as king of this hill"... a week later they released the 7900.You can not win.Take it from someone who has done time as a computer salesman... after Christmas is never the best time to buy. Now is the best time... before the "back to school" price hike and salesmen are hungry; July is such a slow month.CheersShad

FSX is optimised for DirectX10. This we already know.DX10 is a whole new ballgame and will require a dedicated NEW card. This we know too.DX10 will only work with Windows Vista. So there are several reasons to NOT upgrade with a PCI-X card that will be obsolescent in a few months, to a mobo and CPU combo that will be considerably cheaper by the time its actually needed, and we know for sure what kind of tricky hardware FSX is optimised for - so far, little info on SLI, Dual-Core, PCI-X or any of the advanced tech, save for 5.1 sound - so it would be best to factor in a good sound card for the upgrade.With that said, if you ONLY fly FS9 occasionally and you play other games, then why not upgrade now? Prices are slightly depressed by the `wait and see` factor.But as you asked the question in a FS-specialist forum, I'd echo what has has been said: Now is not the time to be spending on hardware unless you've broken it!Allcott

Hi All,Normally I do not suggest people to wait, as the above points are valid. I look at the needs and wants of the poster and then make suggestions.But in the hardware/software environment we are KNOWINGLY in right now, I still say to hold off. Why?New Intel chipsNew AMD chipsNew AMD price cutsNew AMD-ATI mergeNew requiremets for FSXNew OS-VistaNew DX version-DX10New FSX patch-for FSXWe are not talking about the newest/fastest/best here. We are talking about things that may affect EVERYTHING related.If you want to upgrade now, again when FSX is released, and again when Vista/DX10 is released, and before anything settles down, then go ahead!Hope this helps,Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/Active Sky V6 Development Team Active Sky V6 Proud SupporterHiFi Beta TeamRadar Contact Supporter: http://www.jdtllc.com/AirSource Member: http://www.air-source.us/FSEconomy Member:http://dot.kelder.net:8080/fseconomy/

>FSX is optimised for DirectX10. This we already know.Wrong>DX10 is a whole new ballgame and will require a dedicated NEW>card. This we know too.Wrong (only the advanced features and those will not be fully utilized for about two years after the release of DX10)>DX10 will only work with Windows Vista. Wrong (the rumor mill said the same thing about dx9 and win98)>But as you asked the question in a FS-specialist forum, I'd>echo what has has been said: >Now is not the time to be spending on hardware unless you've>broken it!Wrong again.CheersShad

Kittie: I know they always say "wait wait" for upgrading....but I have been on the scene for a long long time and THIS particular time is one of the biggest wait times to come along in years.Rhett

To make a few corrections:- FSX will have DX10 features, but not on release and therefore is not *optimized* for DX10 - whatever that means. - You will *only* see DX10 in Vista. DX10 with XP or any other OS won't happen. This *does not* mean that Vista won't work with a DX9 card. In fact, Vista is internally coded with DX9 and will later get patched to use DX10 for desktop rendering.- There's never a good time to upgrade. Why wait and not improve what we have now? Do I really want to wait a year until I can run FSX or get a system that rocks FS9 now? Does upgrading my system now mean that I cannot run FSX? Certainly not! Get a good CPU and GPU now and then later upgrade to a DX10 board, when they become available (and reasonable). Noone says that you have to upgrade all components at the same time.Pat

Sorry Lucus, I don't mean to steal this thread on you.I believe the new intel is out now, I just can't get a price on it yet. By the time I do the final order of my system, it won't be till late Aug. By then I hope to see if there is anything I want to change. As for waiting until Vista etc. That's not until Feb. That is way to long to wait. I don't think the system I'm buying will not be able to run Vista, as it says right on the box, Vista Ready.This is the specs for my 'old' system and then the new one I'm ordering.This is our current "monster" specs.Thermaltake Xaser Damier V5000A caseAntec True Power Supply @ 550wAsus A8V-Deluxe MotherboardAMD Athlon 3500+ Processor1 Gig TwinX Corsair 3200XLPro Ram2x36 Gig Western Digital Raptor Hard Drives (10,000 RPM each) in Raid 01x250 Gig Western Digital Hard drive (7500 RPM) for backup/storageRadeon X850 XT Video CardAdd in all the usuals like DVD player, CD burner etc.....Motherboard: Asus M2N32-SLI DeluxeCPU: AMD sAM2 FX62 Memory: 2GB DDR2 1000 mhz OCZ Titanium (PC8000) OR(I did find this ram too now, I a Corsair fan but I'm not sure what's better) Corsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-8500C5 2GB 2X1GB PC8500 DDR2-1066 CL 5-5-5-15 240PIN Dual Channel Memory Hard Drive: 300 GB 10,000 RPM SATA (2x150) Western Digital Raptor in Raid 0Case: Thermaltake Armor CaseVideo Card: 1 GB Geforce 7950 GX2 PCI-ESound Card: SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusicOS: Windows XP Home Power Supply: Thermaltake 700WAlso tossed in a Zalman Fatal1ty CPU Fan (This thing is huge!) for additional cooling.Not sure about liquid cooling.What I've found with flight sim, is the better the processor and Ram, the better frames. Video card is second, then harddrives.

The one thing I wanted to say to you about your proposed setup, was that in my opinion, it might be wise to not spend so much on the video card.I think that 512meg 7900GTX card will be a lot of $$$ for a card that will be obsolete come February or so.You are probably going to want to get a DX10 card next year, and when you do, then you can go all-out with a 512meg or 1gig video ram video card.Rhett

I have to wonder about going to the A8N board when you are buying a CPU too? Is this just to save a couple 512 sticks of DDR memory? How good is that memory?ISTM to get a couple 1g mem sticks, and if you do that go DDR2 on the M2N board or simular.For me, I'm with an AMD 939 board with AGP, so there isn't really anything worth keeping on this. I will be waiting out to see how things shape up. I would like to see an Nvidia chip for C2D. Since they won't be doing any more work on AMD board chips :)scott s..