Hello All, I guess it's time to ask for some advice on a new system. First off, I am NOT building one for VISTA,as at this point I am NOT interested in VISTA. This system will be for XP Pro and FSX and I am desiring something which will allow me the fastest and most clear framerate without stutters and problems. Presently I have a P4 3.2 oc'd to 3.54 gig, ATI 9800 pro Overclocked, 2 gig of ram, (Kingston Hyper Xwith heat spreaders) an ASUS P4C800 E Delux MB. I am looking for one which will be dual core, accept dual video pci express cards, and need advice on all -- my present system runs FSX at 10-18 FPS with most sliders at 3/4 . . .and yes I want more performance. Not perhaps the most expensive, but close to it and I am more than capable of putting it together myself.Let's hear some Ideas, and keep in mind I'm a Intell guy!Best to all and looking forward to your ideas.Clay

Hi Clay, I had similar aspirations. After 6 months of research I settled on the specs below. Machine really flies!Cost was around US$2300 (not including monitor or peripherals like mouse, keyboard, joystick, etc.) and I re-used my case (Antec P160), sound card and DVD drives from my existing system. In the US you could get these components cheaper than I could get them in Oz.The key components for FSX/FS9 are the CPU (E6600 would be nearly as good), RAM (at least 2GB of fast, brand name memory) and the HDD (10,000 rpm WD Raptor is preferable to a RAID array for reading lots of little files from FS9/FSX). The video card is second string, but until nVidia get their act together with decent drivers and DX10 becomes available, I really cannot justify an 8800GTX for FS9/FSX, which are really CPU limited. I bought a good quality CPU cooler to ensure long component life and lower noise levels. For similar reasons I chose a Seasonic PSU. You'd need a bigger PSU than mine if you plan on using two 8800GTX in SLI. I chose not to go that way, again because FS9/FSX are CPU limited and show very little advantage with SLI or Crossfire.The mobo uses a nVidia 680i chipset, which is the benchmark right now and should be capable of handling future upgrades to quad core CPUs, if they become usable for gaming in the future. I could have gone for the new ASUS Striker instead but again found the extra cost hard to justify, as the difference in speed is negligable.Cheers,Noel.

I second that. Right now Core 2 Duo is the way to go. And they overclock well. If it was August, we'd have Agena and Kuma, but not yet.Seasonic makes great PSUs. Get one of those, or another good brand. You can't skimp on power if you're going to run 2 (or even 1) 8800's.

Thanks guys, I was looking at the specs of that striker, and its pretty impressive, however the EVGA is every bit as impressive as the Striker considering the money difference.I do have a question on how the 2 vid cards work, having never seen a demo of such, and this would be on a 2 or 3 monitor system.What do you think the dual core 6800 could safely OC to?Thanks again, now I have 'some' idea of where I am going.Best to you and yours, Clay

What Noel said is right on.For FS, get the most cpu you can afford. Center your build around the cpu. The best performance/price point is still on the Intel Core2Duo E6600.Other than that everything else is secondary.I gotta get one of those Raptors as a dedicated FS-only drive...RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

All of the previous responses have given you very good advice regarding a system build with TODAY's technology. I have a few observations from a slightly different perspective: First, your FSX performance seems a bit low to me, given your current setup. Are you using autogen? If so, you may get some significant performance gains by using the more "frame rate friendly" replacement textures that you can download from the library. Second, what is your timeframe for the upgrade? SP1 is reportedly nearing completion, and it may improve your performance to an acceptable level. The reason I ask is because.......later this year, Intel will be releasing the new "Penryn" line of CPUs which are predicted to have significantly higher clock speeds than the current line of Core 2 Duos. These MAY be compatible with existing C2D motherboards, but it's not yet certain. Anyway, the "Penryn" line may be an effective solution for FSX's current performance limitations. Finally, you're not going to gain much in FSX from dual video cards in a SLi or Crossfire setup. FSX wasn't designed to take advantage of these, due to incompatibilities (which were beyond ACES' control) with some types of multiple-monitor support. You should investigate this carefully before you decide to spend the bucks on dual video cards, especially if you're considering a Matrox multi-monitor setup. (Personally, I would go for a DX10 card, just in case VISTA proves to be beneficial for FSX. I'm not saying I know whether it will be, just that you might want to leave your options open.) Good luck!

Penryn probably won't be shipping in volume until early 2008. It is mainly a die shrink to 45 nm, but there will be some tweaks to the core (a new SSE I think). The next big jump will happen this summer with Barcelona (and Agena and Kuma) from AMD. These use the new K10 microarchitecture. They should be a huge jump in performance from today's Athlons and Opterons (especially in floating point math):http://news.com.com/AMD+Go+to+Barcelona+ov..._3-6152645.htmlIf you have a socket AM2 motherboard, you can plop one of these in when they come out (you might need to flash your BIOS first).

>>The next big jump will happen this summer with Barcelona (and>Agena and Kuma) from AMD. These use the new K10>microarchitecture. They should be a huge jump in performance>from today's Athlons and Opterons (especially in floating>point math):>I have been wondering if the Barcelona/Agena/Kuma will help us a lot in FS.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

I'm speculating that it will help a lot. For a long time, this new core architecture has been called K8L (K8 is the original Athlon 64/Opteron). For quite awhile, conventional wisdom has been that the new core will not be a completely new microarchitecture--that instead it would be a major tweak of the architecture. Inherent in this is the code name...just taking on a letter instead of a new number (like K9).Late last year, some more information came out that K8L was actually a misnomer. Barcelona is actually known as K10 inside AMD (K9 was the dual core Athlon 64/Opteron and K8L was the low power Athlon called Turion). It is looking like Barcelona IS a completely new microarchitecture, and because of that, we can expect bigger performance increases.Then early this year, AMD started floating some number (80% better floating point performance core-to-core, 40% faster than Clovertown (Core 2) in a lot of workloads (these are probably server workloads). Now its early, and these numbers are not proven, but if its anywhere near 40% faster than C2D, that's fantastic.Also, this is AMD's second stab at their 65nm process. Brisbane was the first stab...it doesn't clock much higher than the 90nm process. AMD has had time to work some of the kinks out of the 65nm process, so hopefully Barcelona will have some more headroom (maybe 3.5ghz?).We'll see how it plays out.

It's going to be interesting then this summer.As for me with my San Diego core cpu, and even being aware of Core2, I have so far had no compelling reason to upgrade. Maybe Penryn or Barcelona will compel me. Proof will be in FS performance I suppose.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

Yup, the proof will be in the pudding.I built a machine in December and chose an Opteron system. By all rights, I should have built a Core 2 Duo system, but I'm betting Barcelona, et. al will trump Core 2 Duo this summer. Also, I'm much more familiar with AMD hardware/motherboard. We'll see.Now if I can just break the 3 ghz barrier...

Hello all, again.As usual, I have gleened a wealth of information from the FS whizkids! You guys are part of what makes this hobby so interesting and rewarding. I've always marveled at how most all are so willing to help someone else on different problems, and espicially with hardware and computer systems which run our beloved FlightSim!My timeframe is about 60 days or so, which will allow me to gather all the info needed to understand the new systems and equip out there and then make a informed decision, which, as we know, will have to last me at least 2-3 years till the next version of FS will be out.Thanks to all of you which had answers -- as it has opened many doors for me -- and keep it coming, as I'm sure there is even more yet I don't know about or understand. Lastly, I still don't understand how the dual Vid cards work or are hooked up, and if or do they effect a dual or tripple monitor system. Again, thank you all so much for your great info.Best, Clay

I assume that you will be using two PCIe cards because you want more displays... I'm also building a system but for FS9:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=23847&page=Anyway I've decided to go with 7950GT cards. Make sure your motherboard supports full 16X PCIe on bioth slots in non-SLI mode, otherwise your cards might be limited to 8X, 8X or 16X, 1X.