I have $250 to upgrade my system. I am using FS9. My current system is a Athlon XP 1700/266 with 256 DDR333 memory and video driver built into motherboard (no AGP slot on board) and a 400 watt power supply.I am looking at the following system.Pentium D 840 3.2 on a MSI PM8PM-V motherboard/ 500 watt power/ 1 mb PC4200 533 memory and either a GeForce FX5500 AGP 8X with 256 mb or XFX GeForce 6200 AGP 8X with 256 mb.Any comments or suggestions. Should I expect a significant boost in performance with this upgrade? Which video card is better? Any suggestions on a better upgrade approach based on budget amount?

Hi,1. You are not going to get that system for $250.2. How long until you get FSX?3. Both of those video cards are going to hold back that CPU.Thanks,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://www.fseconomy.com/

I do have $75 in gift cards (amazon and tiger direct) and combined with deals/rebates I've seen on those sites, I think I can get that system (the rest of the componets I will take off my current system). The $250 is my budget out of pocket costs wish I had more, but thats life. I do not have any immediate plans for FSX. It seems like the major updates are in graphics, so I think I would hold off on FSX until I would be able to afford a computer powerful enough to to take advantage of the graphics updates.Would a better approach be to spend money on a best PCI video card I can afford (I don't know if there are any higher end PCI cards?) and maybe some more memory, or keep my current processor, upgrade motherboard to one with a AGP/PCI-e slot and spend the rest on video card and possibly add some memory.So I'm thinking I can update the processor now and upgrade to a better video card down the road, or update the video card now and update the processor somewhere down the road.Thanks for the suggestions.

Hi:From Pricewatch.com and your list:CPU $173MB $57PS $30Memory $70GPU $50Total $380You are going to overspend on the CPU because your graphics card is not going to be able to keep up. You need to balance things out a bit. You can get a nice AMD combo and then spend a bit more on an AGP video card. The important thing is a good balance here. Also, your 400w PS is good enough. Unless it going out, that is plenty of power for now. That frees up some additional $.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://www.fseconomy.com/

From TigerDirect:Motherboard and CPU bundel listed in original post $160 after rebate - $50 gift card = $110 although now I seen a Abit S680DC motherboard bundeled with the same CPU for $10 less.From Amazon.com:Memory $85 - $25 gift card = $60.If I stay with my current case and power supply, that leaves me with $80-$90 to spend on video card.Can I get one in that price range that is compatable with this system? I am lost on how to evaluate video cards. Is there a site that anyone can point me to for video card evaluations/features/etc.

Hi,http://www.tomshardware.com/http://www.guru3d.com/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://www.fseconomy.com/

I'd say, if you are going to upgrade bigtime maybe next year, or something like that, then if you want a $250 upgrade for right now, I'd consider:3700+ $90ASRock motherboard or something similar $70keep your current p/skeep your current monitorkeep your current keyboardkeep your current hd2x512 (1 gig) memory $90video card, nvidia 6xxx series $80oops, I've sent you way over. Well, if you have bundle discounts, and discount coupons, that should keep you in budget.$250 isn't much to work with, but the good thing is, going from your present setup, you'd be pleasantly impressed with FS performance with the above system.The above system could even run FSX with reasonable slider settings!:)If the above is still above budget, even with discounts, consider dropping the cpu down (3500+ Venice core, $60-70, maybe cheaper yet on ebay) and drop down to 512 megs ram, but I don't recommend that (512 is not enough). And the vid card could be dropped down, but I don't recommend you getting an nvidia 5xxx series. Either go with ATI or find a cheaper 6xxx series, like a 6200.RhettAMD 3700+, eVGA 7800GT 256, ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, etc. etc.

Hi there,I did a system upgrade a month ago, and I had almost the same parts of your current system. I replaced them with a Pentium D 805 processor and a Geforce 6600GT PCI-E card. I had great results, and a HUGE performance boost.. Check my thread for more info:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...16830&mode=fullI strongly suggest you drop the FX cards out of your list. They're not worth it anymore. If possible go for the Geforce 6 series, a way much better solution.But anyway, you'll need one of the Geforce 7th generation cards to fully squeeze that CPU.. I think the Pentium D 805 is way cheaper & also recommended IF you plan on upgrading to Core 2 sometime later, so you may as well want to check your planned mobo for Core 2 compatibility.Hope this helps.Good luck.

Thanks for the suggestions. They really helped.Tim