Time for a new machine, and since I have always had excellent results with Dell it's time for Dell #5!Anyway, I figure these specs should be able to handle FSX without much issue, but was curious what some of you thought about it.PROCESSOR: Intel

That's pretty much what everyone goes with these days.... either that quad core or a E6850 (dual core) would work fine.Granted, there are new CPU's coming out soon (Intel Penryn), that you may want to take a look at. When will they come out? There has been some rumors of postponement, so we don't know for sure, Q1 2008 is the rumored date (even though this link says Jan 08)http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=101960If you are buying right now, I'd highly recommend that system you list. If you're getting that sound card, get some half decent speakers to go with it too :)Good call on matched pairs for that RAM, you want your 2x1GB and 2x512mbThat Q6600 on stock speed will do well with FSX, not fantastic (the only way most are getting great results is by overclocking to 3.5, 3.6+ etc)Have fun!

That system looks good. The only concern I would have--and this is something I am sure you know how to deal with, having experience with Dells--is that you may have lots of OS optimization to do with respect to what Dell tends to put on their boxes.I like Dells. We tend to purchase Dells at my work and they have in years past been loaded up with various services and processes. For an optimally-performing FS rig, and/or development rig, that would be my only major concern.Now, I have a question for you. Are you looking at Vista 64 or Vista 32?RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Thanks, guys, and its Vista 32, Rhett.Regards,http://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...R_FORUM_LOU.jpg

Hi Lou,That's a good machine at stock speeds. If you are planning on any overclocking (which seems to be a must for FSX!) I don't know if the Dell motherboard will be able to handle it.The Q6600 at 2.4GHz probably won't cut it in FSX.Glenn

I guess it depends on the "mission", Glenn. All I need is a machine that shows all the graphics features of FSX / DX10. For flight testing, I put sliders at minimum anyway. I only max out for screen shots, where frame rates do not matter. ;)I don't have the time to use FS as you folks do and, as I said above, when I do fly it I don't need high scenery density, as long as I can get a smooth 20 FPS and see what my airplane looks like, I am fine.Regards,http://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...R_FORUM_LOU.jpg

Lou,I've built a few FS computers now, and I would really upgrade that ram. You should look not only for more, but faster ram. The 667 stuff is way outdated now (it's two revision cycles old already) we're already able to buy 1400MHz ram over the counter. I would go with at LEAST 800MHz stuff, and even then it wouldn't be to expensive to get 4GB worth. FSX is a complete ram hog, and the more you have the better.

That Dell will be running at a 266mhz FSB. All DDR ram gets DDR'd by the FSB, so any ram you put in it will run at 533mhz. Dell will put DDR2-533 in it . . . that is if they can even get it any more. DDR2-667 (or DDR3-2000) will still run at whatever the FSB is, times 2, or 533. There's no point in putting ram that rated to run faster than that. If you can, go for the 64 bit op system and 4 gigs. I sit at 3 gig loads with FS running all the time. Are you sure you don't want to build it? http://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/wishli...tNumber=7162186This one'll take that quad to 3.6 with a couple of Bios clicks. We'll help.

@LouAs I said we tend to use Dells at work; but, as Sam said consider building yourself. There are a lot of people here that know a lot, and they can steer you toward parts that are guaranteed stable and with good performance. If you are busy like I am, you may not have time to do the research...well, you don't have to. It's already been done for you.The current sweet spot build (centered around a G0 Q6600 cpu) is now very tried-and-true technology. It's been around for what, 5-6 months? Eternity in computer time. :) It can be built stably and reliably, and relatively inexpensively.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Not true. FSB and ram clocks aren't linked anymore.

Lou,Marina's (my wife's) computer, that I built a couple of years ago, bit the dust. I decided that rather than spending time building another system I would check out a computer that Bill Leaming mentioned, and I must say for what you get in it it's an excellent buy. My local Best Buy had a couple of them in stock, and now they have one less! :-)It's the "Acer Aspire M5630-U5209A"Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Windows Vista Premium Home2 GB DDRII Crucial PC6400 RAM.500 GB SATA HDATI Radeon HD2400 Pro 256MB DX10.1 Shader 4.0 Video CardSuperMulti DL +/- DVD RW DriveDigital Card readersUSB Optical Mouse USB Keyboard USB Speakers.The sale price at BestBuy is $709, I couldn't hardly build one for much less! http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp;js...omputers&ks=960(Very long link, requires copying and pasting the whole thing!)She loves it. She does some machine embroidery design digitizing, and works with lots of pics and graphics.Pete S.

"Not true. FSB and ram clocks aren't linked anymore." True, it's not true!Actually they've been unlink-able for a long time. 'twas only trying to KIS. However in any case, even if Dell clicked the 677 tickbox in the bios to get that DDR2-667 to run at its rated speed (then locked that bios down so we could not operate our own equipment), we would only be able to measure the RW performance difference with a statistical analysis of multiple populations of FRAPS runs. I say "Shame on Dell" for offering this 'Faster' ram nonsense. It's probably all they can get these days and in there anyway.

Can someone please explain? I read the specs above:PROCESSOR: Intel

Jean Luc,The FSB is quad pumped. The BIOS will always report the FSB divided by 4Therefore, 266 x 4 = 1066If you look in my sig you will see that I have my FSB in the BIOS set to 400mhz. In real terms, when Quad pumped, this gives me an effective FSB of 1600Mhz. (quad pumped has nothing to do with quad core by the way)As for the memory, if you run the FSB at 1:1 with the ram, you only require 533mhz DDR2 for 266mhz (1066) FSB. DDR2 runs at 2x so 266x2 = 533 for the memory.In my case, I have DDR2-800 which in reality runs at 400mhz. (400x2=800)This allows me to run my FSB and memory in a 1:1 ratio. 400mhz for the FSB (giving 1600mhz when quad pumped) and 400Mhz for the RAM (800mhz because it's DDR2)What you can also do if you don't like overclocking the FSB is to still buy faster RAM and use a divider.With the 1066 (266) FSB speed CPU's you could use DDR2-800 and set a 1:3 divider thus meaning that the CPU and RAM are operating at the rated speeds independantly although my understanding of this is that the perforamce gains are very minimal.PS - How is the A320 coming along? Not much news on the AirlinerXP site!Glenn

Hi Glenn,thanks for the explanations! I was still under the belief it was "double pumped" and not "quad". It all fits then.So for the XPS420 listed above, it is a good match of mem and FSB speed I guess. Makes me want to consider one.I used to build my computers for the last 15 years, but I feel like this time around, I might purchase a ready made one. I did that for my oldest son 3 years ago, a boxing day sale, and for what he does with it, it is far more than enough. Then 1.5 years ago, I purchased a Thinkpad T60 which has became not only admin duties computer (email, web), but also main development computer (mind you, a heavily equiped T60...). So now it might be time again to purchase a brand computer with Vista, as main FSX computer + gfx applications on a widescreen, and put all this on the network.Is there anything better than Dell from your experience in terms of quality for the bucks, or on the contrary, are the Dell XPS series known to be less good performance wise than branded motherboards (like ASUS)? and what about mem/cpu overclocking/bios tweaking on Dell?As for the A320, there are recent threads on our AXP forum, with speculations, assumptions, and our attempts to answer these. A German magazine is supposed to go to press toady with an interview + exclusive screenshots (never published before!)