Hello folks i have a thousand dollars to spend on a chip and motherboard, what do you recommend to buy for FSX.right now im running a 3800+, 7800gs vid card, gigabyte mb, 80 gig 10.000 rator drive, 2 gig.im getting with tweaks 10 -12 fps and i dont mind that at all because im satisfied with the results compared to FS9, autogen at normal.im also running a eight monitor set up and that to will drop your frame rate when you divide panels between three monitors.so im getting good results with the system that i have, but im wanting to upgrade to make it run even better, i know about all the problems with FSX , so what would be a good chip and board to get right now that will give me a boost .right now im thinkin of just the board and chip and the best ram i can get for a 1000 bucks.the vid card im not worried about i can upgrade at compusa from a 7800gs to a 8800 series, just pay the deferance in price.thanks.............Robert

I've been researching this question for the last couple months and just placed my order at Newegg. I decided on the C2D (Core2Duo) 6600 and evga nvidia 680i. The toughest part was the Mobo and there were various reasons I went with the nvidia 680i chip. You might be just as happy with a board with the nvidia 650i. It is nearly as feature-rich as the 680i and overclocks just as well. Either of the nvidia mobos are about the best you can get for overclocking at this time. If you aren't into overclocking, you might check out a board with the Intel 965 chipset. It'll be a few weeks before I get my new system together so I can't give you any framerates or anything. The general consensus from these forums is that the C2Ds are pretty good for FSX performance. The mobo may not have much direct bearing on FSX performance so pick one that fits your specific needs in other areas (storage features, etc.). It's a tough decision right now. Hopefully this info is helpful.

The motherboard and CPU in my sig will set you back around $150 and $230 respectively, and I can get up to 3.6GHz out that combo. FSX is certainly better on this system than on my son's A64 3700+ rig, but I've shelved it until the performance patch and a few decent addons come out that make it more a sim than a tease. FS9 + lots of heavy addons runs really sweet now.Gary