hi,i am thinking of the following upgrades,Intel

It's definitely a good start but, as you know, the X850XT ATI card won't allow you to run DirectX 10 when that comes out. I think the Crossfire card is okay but I like the NVIDIA 8800GTX better. You might want to check out the following link on upgrading. They have compiled an excellent list of components, including prices, for the very basic system up to the dream machine: http://www.techspot.com/guides/41-highend-...g-guide-200701/.Best regards,Jim

Hi jim,thanks for the link i will check it out.i have always used ati cards but i notice a lot of people in these forums use nvidia cards.maybe i should get a larger power supply and the dominator ram.then i would only have to get a new video card in the future.regards,tony.

Hi Tony,Yes, if you can afford a larger power supply (at least 850), you should. I have the X800XT PCIe card and I think everyone is moving over to NVIDIA because their new cards are DirectX compliant. ATI/AMD has a DX10 card coming out but they just announced it won't come out until May. They are trying hard to destroy themselves.Best regards,Jim

I have to agree with Jim. I am an old ATI user (currently running a 9800XT), but I will definitely be going to an NVIDIA card when I upgrade later this year. Before you consider going the Crossfire/SLI route, make sure the games you are going to be be playing will take advantage of two graphics cards. FSX will not take advantage of SLI, so it is not necessary to buy two cards. Your CPU will bog down FSX long before your Graphics card will bog it down, and FSX code was built around supporting multi-monitors rather than two graphics cards.If you do decide to go with an 8800 Nvidia (GTX or GTS), you should consider an EVGA Nvidia 680i motherboard. EVGA gets very good customer ratings. I guess they offer great support, and you can see that if you go to their website and check out their very active forums. This motherboard is designed for overclocking, and offers alot of overclocking options for you to use within windows, and in the BIOS of course.One last thing. Nvidia is supposed to release their next DX10 compliant card the same time ATI brings out their first DX10 card. You may want to take a look to see what Nvidia's new card is going to offer before you do anything. It looks like we got some time before FSX is going to be DX10 capable anyway, so their is no need to get in a hurry if this is the game you are upgrading your system to play.

i have been looking at the evga board and also this board- Asus