Been waiting weeks for an E6700 at E6600 prices. It finally happened yesterday.I have been waiting for about a month to purchase an E6700, which I did yesterday from ZipZoomFly.com . I paid $340 which is down $175 from where it was before. You can do even better at other websites such as:http://www.antaresdigital.com/customer/sea...=e6700&x=54&y=9And the E6600 has also dropped significantly. For example at Newegg it is $235.http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList....scription=e6600In short the long promised price drop has arrived. For people with slow machines... like me ... its time to take advantage until the third quarter when things promise to get even better. I haven't rebuilt in 4 years ... I CAAANNNN'T wait any longer to enjoy FSX.Best Wishes,Steve

Looks like the advice to `hurry up and wait` is bearing fruit. By the end of the year a hardware upgrade to run a DX10-patched FSX is going to either be considerably cheaper, or for the same money you can get substantially better performance - providing the SP1 allows multi-core to do what it is supposed to.Is there a commercial reason for this price drop? New products around the corner from Intel, or an emerging AMD competitor to the Core 2? I haven't even begun to look at upgrading yet. One thing to note: RAM is likely to INCREASE in price later in the year as the demands of Vista double or treble the industry-standard of onboard RAM for OEM computers. Allcott

>For people with slow machines... like me ... its time to take advantage>until the third quarter when things promise to get even>better.>>Best Wishes,>SteveThats actually what I'm waiting for, if you wait one more quarter you are looking at $266 for the Q6600 (thats right the quad core.)Some good times coming up for those of us looking to upgrade in Q3. By then we should also have some R600 competition to answer Nvidea's 8800, all's I can say is woohoo, and bring on the 2nd generation! Hopefully a bit of competition at the higher end will give the 1st generation cards a more attractive price point.New R600 benchmarks released today (see link below) indicate some good performace numbers, the HD 2900 XT slightly outperforms the 8800GTS but not by much. Still by launching a slightly better card at a similar price we may see a slight price drop for the GTS card (or am I wishing upon a star here?). I'd be interested to see how the 2900 XTX performs in comparison to the GTX though they're not really in my budget. For my purposes a GTS is likely to be sufficient for me, and as hardware is, in another 12 months there will be a new performance king for $999 and the GTX will likely be in the middle of the pack.>Is there a commercial reason for this price drop? New products>around the corner from Intel, or an emerging AMD competitor to>the Core 2? I haven't even begun to look at upgrading yet. >Emerging AMD competitor, AMD's Barcelona architecture.I suspect they're adjusting prices in anticipation for the Q3 price drop they're going to hit AMD with when they lauch Barcelona. Those whom were wanting to buy soon or were sitting on the fence might be pushed over the buy/wait threshold by these new prices. And even if the Barcelona takes the performance crown Intels Q6600 CPU with a $266 price tag will still be a serious contender for mainstream enthusiasts, some good times ahead for those aiming for mid-high end PC's.I was looking at the E6600 for my next system but at Q3 prices the Core 2 Q6600 is now well within my price range.So maybe good things do come to those who wait. :)CheersJeremySee the following articles for some interesting reads:AMD Barcelona - http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2939Intel CPU Prices - http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=6488R600 Benchmarks - http://www.dailytech.com/ATI+Radeon+HD+290...article7043.htm

>>One thing to note: RAM is likely to INCREASE in price later in>the year as the demands of Vista double or treble the>industry-standard of onboard RAM for OEM computers. >>For years I have heard about the impending "run on ram", and "you better buy it now while it's still cheap".So far, in 16 years of being in the scene, the infamous "run on ram" has never happened.I remember this guy at a computer shop in St. Louis kept telling me that back in 1991 or 92. I will never forget it, it made me laugh...still makes me laugh because of the way he said it, and the look on his face...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

>For my purposes a GTS is likely to be sufficient for me, and>as hardware is, in another 12 months there will be a new>performance king for $999 and the GTX will likely be in the>middle of the pack.>Actually in my opinion/prediction, even the lower end DX10 cards (8300, 8500, 8600) will be quite sufficient for our FS needs, since FS is so cpu-driven, and somewhat lacking in vid card usage.(You'd probably want at least 512 vid ram though, and I'm not so sure that will be offered with the lower-tier DX10 cards.)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

>So maybe good things do come to those who wait. :)>They are coming to me, because Q3-4 is my upgrade time. Or make that Miller Time. :)I'm not messing around this time. Dual Raptors in RAID0, mirrored to a 7200 drive; 4 gb overclockable ram; Win Vista 64bit; fastest Cpu available Q3-4; DX10 card with at least 768 vram; probably a Coolermaster Stacker case this time around. Or something similar.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