I've had my current system for 3 years. Back in the day, I used to do a major upgrade every year or 18 months. The advance of processor speeds has slowed down, and I've been pretty happy with this system for most things (though FS9 still occassionally chugs in heavy weather and complex airports).So, with FSX on the horizon I'm starting to think about my upgrade plan. I'm not going to buy FSX until I upgrade, because I'm enjoying my current add-ons too much and I'm not looking forward to the endless tweaking.I'm hoping that around Spring 2007 the new wave of graphic cards (DX10) will have settled in. Once that happens, I'll get a new barebones system with the basics (CPU, mobo, memory), buy a video card, and canabilize the rest from my current system.Only question ... can I hold out that long? Going to be tough. I really think that right now is a bad time to upgrade, at least in terms of mobos and graphic cards.What are you guys with 2+ year-old systems planning on doing?

Mine's getting a little old also. But, I have absolutely no upgrade plans. I'm not going to "upgrade" to Vista until at least early 2008 so there's no use looking at anything related to DX10-capable hardware until then. Also, FSX has shown itself to be a bit (lot?) more CPU-bound than many expected and since it makes minimal use of dual-core technology and was written for DX9 I don't see a near-term hardware update as being all that beneficial nor cost-effective.Doug P4 3.2E @ 3.680 (1.385 vCore - 230 FSB)Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (BIOS 1019)4 x 512MB Corsair TWINX CXM3700 (3-4-4-8)1520 GB of WD HDDATI X850XT PEA-Open 1648 AAP RipperPlextor 708A WriterEnermax 431W PSUInwin Case

My PC is/was 3 and half years old (P4 2.4, 1gb, Radeon 9500) and never could run FS9 that well and using FSX beta was, well shall we say painfull!! Actually it wan't that bad, but it did need a hefty push of the some sliders to the left side.Still, it was good enough to make it look like this with an add-on!In the end, I decided not to bother waiting as left's face it, whenever you upgrade it's wrong. Everything's different in a few months; new technology, cheaper prices etc.So I bit the bullet; new case, MBO, CPU, GPU, memory and HD.No doubt, by this time next year I might have to get a new OS and GPU, but what's the point in struggling on for another year?Dreamfleet Project ManagerGreatest Airliners - DC-8Greatest Airliners - 727 Whisperjethttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...BANNER_PAUL.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/158505.jpg

P4 2.8 GHz, Radeon 9550SE, 1 GB. No plans. If I can find a steal (:)Earl

Well my system is not 2+ years old. But my plans are to not upgrade for at least a year. I'm going to let the 2nd generation of DX10 cards come out. I'm going to let Vista come out, and let the rest of you guinea-pig that OS for me. :) Then, I might consider some sort of rebuild.RhettAMD 3700+, eVGA 7800GT 256, ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, etc. etc.

There is no way that I am upgrading for a long time - oh wait a minute, I just did :-lolWhile some think I may be premature to upgrade for FSX, given that it hasn't been fully characterised in its release form, the fact is I didn't upgrade for this specific reason. My main upgrade reason is to finally give my fully optioned out, all sliders to the right, FS9 the wings it needs to fly for at least the next year. After all, I've spent enough money on addons, so I want to get a little return on investment. Also, I generally upgrade every year to 18 months, as my FS-mad son is close behind me wanting my retired hardware, and that way nothing he runs is more than 2-3 years old. I've played the waiting game for the likes of Vista and DX10 generational upgrades before and generally I have found that it takes a few months (years even!) longer than the industry predicts before they either perform like they should or cost what I am willing to pay. Therefore, I'm very comfortable buying mid-high spec just before these revolutions are touted to occur.BTW, FS9 is running sweet-as on my new rig. With the same FS9 / addon / slider mix I had before with my A64 3700+, 1G RAM, X800XT, I have now boosted from 23 FPS with the default flight to around 45 FPS, and that's with AA at 8xS and AF at 16X! Finally I am getting over 30 FPS in the 737NG VC, something that has regularly had me in single digits with my previous rig. As you can imagine, I am very happy. :-) :-)FSX is still a work in progress. I only have the Beta 3, but now I can run ultra high settings with the default flight and easily peg 25 FPS (locked) with a spanned screen resolution of 3360x1050. These same settings bring me down to 10 FPS around KSEA, which is a little disappointing for such a powerful new rig, but I can't say I didn't know the lower performance in this area wasn't expected. I will uses FSX for my VFR flying until either MS or the user community produces solutions that bring FSX back to FS9-like performance in these areas.Gary

Your new rig seems like a great set-up, Gary. I'll admit it's tempting to upgrade now and get FS9 running as slick as possible. Right now, I'm generally happy but things get pretty clunky at KSEA in bad weather flying a moderately detailed aircraft (PMDG's B1900C)...... Must resist temptation ....As for FSX, if I purchased it now I'd probaly just use it for VFR bush flying or island-hopping ... staying as far away from the big cities and air traffic as possible. But, I just am not in the mood for the endless tweaking right now. All of this stuff about replacement autogen, config settings, etc. Urgh. Been there, done that.It'll be fun to sit on the sidelines and watch the hysteria a bit.

I've had my system for a long time now (2+ years). Here are the current specs:Shuttle SN95G5Athlon64 3500+1GB RAMRadeon X800XT 256MBM-Audio Delta1010LT Audio card160GB Maxtor, 120GB WD and 74GB WD RaptorJudging by the performance of the FSX demo, this system is not nearly enough for FSX. Sure, I can get decent performance if I reduce some quality settings, but then it looks no better than FS9... So it makes more sense to stick with FS9 for now, which has better compatibility with current addons and is tweaked to perfection.Since we're at the very end of the DX9-era, buying another DX9 card now seems pointless. I will wait with the upgrade until the first DX10 cards become widely available. I'll then do a complete system overhaul, seeing as my current system is AGP only (NForce3 mobo).

>Since we're at the very end of the DX9-era, buying another DX9>card now seems pointless. I will wait with the upgrade until>the first DX10 cards become widely available. I'll then do a>complete system overhaul, seeing as my current system is AGP>only (NForce3 mobo).The only upgrading I might do is another gig of ram and maybe another "interim" dx9 card till the 2nd gen dx10's are out. But, I also tend to agree with you that it seems rather pointless. My x800xt doesn't really seem to be able to "cut-it" anymore though and I really want to try the TripleHead2Go.Edit: Think I will pick up a cheap soundcard though too - been integrated for too long.Regards, KendallDell 8400 3.2 GHZ H.T.800 FSB/2MB L22 GB 533 DDR2X800XT 256MB/Cat.5.13's6x Adaptive AA/16x HQ A/FIntegrated SoundDual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905CH Yoke/Pedals

My new system which should be finally ready by mid next week. The computer shop had trouble getting the video card.Here's the specsIntel Core 2 Extreme X6800Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe NVIDIA Socket 775 ATX MotherboardThermaltake ToughPower 750-WattCorsair XMS2 TWIN2X2048-8500C5 2GB 2X1GB PC8500 DDR2-1066 CL 5-5-5-15BFG GeForce 7950 GX2 Dual GPU Video Card 1GBWestern Digital Raptor X 150GB 10000RPM NCQ SATA Hard Drive x2 raid 0Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Platinum PCI Sound CardZalman FATAL1TY FS-V7 Copper VGA Cooler 80MM FanThermaltake Black Armor Full-Tower ATX CaseI was hoping for the computer this weekend, but I have a feeling the computer shop is playing with it all weekend "tweaking". lolKittie

I am building an almost exact system as yours. Except that I am going for BFG 7900 instead a eVGA one, and planning to employ water cool for a push to 4 GHz. Give me luck.

What a system kittie, that should hold you for a year or so into the future, that's about as top of the line as you can get without completely selling the farm.You've probably got the rig that FSX was built for and that's what most dedicated simmers will be running in 18 months.

I'll wind up looking pretty much like Kittie's new rig....(Congrat's BTW...Been a long time coming..huh...I remember one of your first inquiries into building the new system...I think you guys did it Right!!)I'll be using stuff from the Rig in my sig to get there...So I'm looking at buying a MB, Processor, RAM...Kinda waiting on one of these mb's:http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=4538Considering a Phase-Change Cooling system?? Not sure on that though...Considering building something myself...I think it would be a neat project...If I have the time??I'm going to play by ear on a second C2D system...Thinkin I *MAY* do either a 6700 or a 6600 also...Leaning more towards a 6600 at this time...That one I'll just drop my current Liquid System in...and OC the snot out of it...Have Fun!!

Only heat is keeping me away from 3.6GHz. 3.5GHz is very sweet though! Water cooling may just get you to 4GHz. Good luck!Gary

I'm waiting just a bit for the C2D MBs to settle out a bit, then will upgrade. I figure on a $200 graphics card will last for a bit. My vista RC2 will run until June 07 so I can keep that and wait to see how things develop. I figure by June the DX10 and FSX/DX10 situation should be more clear.scott s..