I just purchased the gear below. What kind of performance should I expect in FSX? And what seetings might I need to make in order for it to give me good frame rates?SPECS:VISTA Home Basic 580 WATT Sunbeam PowerCrucial Ballistix 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAMASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6550MSI nVidia NX8800GT 512 PCI-E 2.0SB LIVE 24250 GB WD SATA HD 120 GB WD IDE HD

Not bad at all. What is the RAM Speed? The only bottleneck I'd say is the CPU, and you might want to leave it non-overclocked since the power supply is not too much (maybe a little, but a very good CPU albeit), so my recommended settings are:Graphics: Advanced Animations On, Anisotropic Filtering and Anti-Aliasing working in conjunction with nHancer, and Texture Res. Very HighAircraft: Ultra HighWeather: Your preferenceScenery: Medium High to High if the system doesn't slow too muchTraffic: Medium Low-Medium High-High, depending on performanceRegards,

Thx BG. BTW, I was an inspector for Boeing from 1988 - 1992. I started in everett when they had the first 747-400 in the jig. The transferred to Renton on the 757 -737.The RAM :Brand: Crucial Series: Ballistix Model: BL2KIT25664AA804 Type: 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Tech Spec: Capacity 4GB(2 x 2GB) Speed DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Cas Latency 4 Timing 4-4-4-12 Voltage 2.2V Heat Spreader Yes Is that what you were asking?TurnipSPECS:VISTA Home Basic 580 WATT Sunbeam PowerCrucial Ballistix 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAMASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6550MSI nVidia NX8800GT 512 PCI-E 2.0SB LIVE 24250 GB WD SATA HD 120 GB WD IDE HD

Yeah that's what I was asking. Interesting how you were an inspector for Boeing.Very nice RAM. Probably a little bit of CPU overclocking if you can, and you are all set.

Hey BG, I just read your other post on system/ FSX requirements. Very interesting. I wish I would have read it before I bought this stuff today. After researching what I could and trying to absorb as much as possible, I had to take the leap. Plus the price was right. How does what I am going to be running stack up with what you are suggesting? I have never benchmarked anything and I have only overclocked a video card, never a CPU. I did read a few minutes ago that you need to go in and manually set the RAM speed in the BIOS or it will wipe your OS out. UGH! I've never done that before so I will have to wing it.TurnipSPECS:VISTA Home Basic 580 WATT Sunbeam PowerCrucial Ballistix 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAMASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6550MSI nVidia NX8800GT 512 PCI-E 2.0SB LIVE 24250 GB WD SATA HD 120 GB WD IDE HD

Hi, thanks for reading the post. Don't worry, don't regret buying what you have, that guide is my personal recommendation after a load of research, and I wish I could go back and edit it to tone it down a little bit.As for the RAM Speed, I suppose it is true. If you're OCing RAM, bump it up one notch, then test it, and if the PC POSTs, then you can try one more, but then if it doesn't, you'll have to reset the values. I bumped mine up only one notch to DDR2-961 from DDR2-800 since DDR2-1003 (2 notches) didn't POST.To overclock a CPU, just set the FSB a tad higher than what is is, and monitor the temps. Use CoreTemp to monitor the Tj temperatures of the cores. The Tjuntion value is the max the CPU can go without frying itself. So, you could raise your FSB from 333 to 430 to get to 3.0 GHz, then download and run Prime95 for at least a few hours.You need good cooling for this! I OCed to 3.0 GHz on a stock heatsink once and almost killed the CPU. Anything other than stock heatsink should work well.Hope this helps,

Sounds good. I think I will get FSX running as good a s possible, THEN only if needed, try and overclock it. Seems to me that I should be able to maintian at least 24 FPS with the sime with this setup. If I can have some "bells and whistles" while I fly and maintain a smooth FPS, that will be plenty fine.Thx again for the info and help.TurnipSPECS:VISTA Home Basic 580 WATT Sunbeam PowerCrucial Ballistix 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAMASUS P5N-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 Conroe 2.33GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E6550MSI nVidia NX8800GT 512 PCI-E 2.0SB LIVE 24250 GB WD SATA HD 120 GB WD IDE HD