Well, I benchmarked my system to get a starting point but I'm so imbarrassed that I wont post it here. The new 8800GT worked good but with the CPU I am running, well.... it did the swirl dive down the terlit. ( System Specs Below Are What I will Be Installing Tomarrow )My question is that I read something about having to set the RAM speed manually on this motherboard or it might eat my OS. With your knowledge about this I was wondering if you could put all this in "english" and tell me what I need to do, or what I need to worry about. Sorry about putting you to work but it would be much appreciated.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

RAM speed will not do much for you in FSX. Tell us about your embarrassing benchmark result so that we can help you work out what is not set up right in your system.Gary

Hi Gary, The benchmark I got yesterday was a "before upgrade" test. I have a MSI 8800GT 512 card installed but only run a P5GL-MX MB, P4 3.0 with 2 GB RAM. I did the test to see the differance between a extreme underpowered system and the new one I will be putting together tomarrow which is posted below. My benchmark yesterday was 1890 using 3dMARK06. I saw some tests that were up in the 95000 range albeit I know that I will be no where close to that. The RAM issue is a well documented problem with this new MB and I want to make sure I do it right. Some people have lost their OS when the RAM burped. They said not to set it up automatically, but to do it manually. I have never done this before.ThxTurnipSPECS: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 Turnip,Is there an option which says "DRAM Frequency" in your BIOS?Yes, agreed with Gary, let us know your individual scores, I'll do my best to help.Sorry for the late reply, AVSIM was down last night.

If that benchmark result was before your mobo/CPU upgrade, as you say, then I wouldn't worry too much about it. Just make sure you do a fresh install of your OS, install all the latest drivers, run 3DMark06 and make sure you are getting ballpark results of others with a similar system. Install FSX + addons then away you go!Gary

My OS ( VISTA HOME BASIC ) is only a week old with no other video or sound drivers installed other than the nVidia 8800GT ones. FedEx says the parts will be here tomarrow. What's irritating is that I ordered everything on Saturday from newegg and had it overnighted via FedEx. It is 10 PM and it just left Memphis. Don't know how it will be on a truck by tomarrow morning. 4 days to get something here overnight.My last newegg package got "mis-sent" to Florida last week. BG - I'll check the callout in the BIOS once I get stuff installed.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