I have a 4.5 year old athlon xp 2000+ and radeon 9800pro. Even before considering fsx, I'm ripe for an upgrade so it is just a matter of when. With the upcoming opportunities for ACES to improve the performance of fsx (possibly meaning better dual core support, dx10 and vista), I had convinced myself to wait until at least the middle of next year. However after reading the CPU roadmaps for 2007 on Tom's hardware, I'm reconsidering.As Tom says, Intel is not bringing out anything as revolutionary in 2007 as core 2 was in 2006. Yes there will be Kentsfield, but I'm seeing that as the enthusiast segemnt with a price to match. My budget would not stretch much beyond current E6600 prices. I'd heard rumors of 4 core yorkfield on a 45nm process running at 3.5 ghz, but do not see that in the roadmap. It's hard to see 4 core processors getting anywhere near E6600 price in 2007, and then fsx exploiting them.Meanwhile it seems AMD are following a similar map. Maybe they will come up with processors to beat core 2, and there native 4 core is again something for the enthusiast. However I feel that Intel has listened to the market and delivered a product that is a world beater, and deserve my business on that basis.What could cause prices to reduce on the current core 2 range? Hard to see much movement here. I'm wondering if they will reduce a little this month following Kentsfield, and perhaps again in January with further processor annoucements. However I don't think it will be by much as Intel are just expanding the range rather than introducing E6600 successors.So now I am wondering what is the point of waiting any longer? Might as well build a new system by January at the latest, and take my fsx experience to the next level (and then some). I would probably go with a cheap dx9 card, again I think it will be some time before the price/performance/power consumption reaches a sweet spot for dx10 cards (like I think it is for cpus right now). And that will give time for fsx to catch up with the technology.So what do you think? I am interpreting the cpu (and gpu) roadmaps correctly?

. . .depressing when no-one replies in two days, isn't it?!!I argued with myself for three weeks over the same subject, but about a week after the Core 2 Duo came out I went and splurged. FSX is a DX9 product, so I reasoned that I could always get a second generation DX10 compatible card 8 or 9 months down the road without feeling the pinch. I'm glad I did, because FS9 now runs in the 40's - 60's, and FSX runs beautifully smoothly at an average of 30 - with is at least 10 fps better than my best fps with FS9 on the old system. . .Cost me $1400 Canadian, but it's less than that now.gpu: http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=187312cpu: http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=129605mobo:http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=129713ram: http://www.infonec.com/site/main.php?module=detail&id=16452I already had TrackIR4 and a 21" Gateway monitor. I have to say that the sim has never been better than it is right now, and I'm just looking forward to the import of the updated aircraft that I enjoyed in FS9.Regards,

I fully concur PJ - a mid-range C2D with 2G RAM and a 7600 GPU now, and upgrade to a second gen DX10 vid card in about a years time (if it actually makes any diff with FSX).Gary

With the new nForce 680i SLI chipset motherboards appearing, I'm beginning to wish I had waited a while longer.That and the 8800GTX and GTS look fantastic. This coming from an ATi man as well!!Get the E6600 now with the above mentioned motherboard and possibly one of the GPU's mentioned above. (or wait for DX10 round 2) and then add another in SLI mode when the prices come down.With some overclocking that would be one insane system. (the 680i chipset already comes 'approved' to run at 1333mhz FSB!!)Glenn

Thanks to all concerned, I'd given up on this thread. The comments about fs9 are very relevent, I'd forgotten about that after soaking in the fsx visuals! So yes the time has come to upgrade, but I do want to wait and see concerning vista and dx10. The series 8 cards do look great, but just a little out of my price range right now. So just a couple of "value for money" questions:1) With good memory and a good board, it looks like you can overlock the E6400 and E6600 to not disimilar clock speeds. Is the 2MB extra cache in the 6600 worth the extra money?2) 7600GT looks like a great value card but just 256MB. I was thinking of stretching it out to either a 7900GS or 7900GTO. Maybe an x1950pro, all 512MB. I'm sure I'd see benefit in other games which to be honest I don't have much time to play. Much benefit for fsx?

I wished I had waited for the E6600. It was hard to come by when I built this system in September though. Not only do you get the extra 2mb cache, but you also start out at a higher clock multiplier, meaning it's easier to get further up the speed scale. It's upto you, but I would get the E6600.I would also get a 512mb card if I had my choice again. I purchased a 'budget' model card for this build thinking I would go DX10 in around 6-12 months time. The card is good (great for FS9 and FSX) but I think the extra RAM would help in both sims for texture loading and avoiding the dreaded blurries.I would still seriously consider the nvidia 680i SLI motherboard though. It's about as future proof as you can get right now.

It's a coin flip as to whether you should go E6400 or E6600. The E6600 tends to overclock a little higher (see hardocp forums) but I did pretty well with my E6400. The cache will make a difference, but it would be in the 800 memory right at its rated speed setting. Of course you may get further like I did, but as far as I am concerned it is all icing on the cake from 3.2GHz.Re the 7600 I recommended, that was mostly based on not putting too much cash into a video card now if you were going to upgrade to DX10 second gen in a years time. I ended up with the 7900 GTO 512M myself, which I got for $220, so that I had a card that could adequately cover the 3360x1050 real estate I was going to throw at it and I am very happy with it.Gary

Thanks everyone, at last I have a sense of peace of where I'm going with this. I never thought I'd see the day I went back to Intel, but core 2 is just too good to ignore.