Hi all,Every now and then somebody posts and asks for hardware recommendations. In general I find the questions and recommendations very odd.1. Don't pay any attention to costs. It's all about TOYS and it's FUN!2. Buy a XP Pro license (no OEM stuff).3. Do you wanna build the computer yourself? Go to item #5.4. Buy yourself the most expensive DELL home stationary computer. Jump to item #6.5. Buy the best, and maybe the most expensive, mobo, cpu, gpu, memory, disks (6 1TB disks raid0 to 3 2TB disks) soundcards, encasement and psu that you can find on the market and make sure that the parts work together. Watercooled stuff is allways nice.6. Buy a couple of really big widescreen monitors.7. Hire some guru to configure your hardware and software for an optimal overall performance in FS.In short: Allways go for the best. It's expensive and very foolish, but extremely fun. Don't forget: This is all about TOYS.Some boring people will give you recommendations to buy this and that because you'll get more hardware for your bucks. Crap! After endless hours of tweaking you'll allways regret that you didn't buy the best. Stop tweaking cheap hardware. Use the time spent on tweaking to earn some more money and buy yourself the best hardware you can find. A year later you sell the stuff to some poor guy who doesn't wanna buy the best. Then you can buy yourself a totally new top notch pc. That's the way to go.The point is to have fun. I'm starting to suspect that those hardware gurus and other wise guys get the kicks out of tweaking hardware, changing multipliers, fsb frequencies, memory timings, latencies here and there, buffer pools. Very bizarre. They actually never fly in FSX, they only use FSX to benchmark some changed CAS setting in BIOS, after upgrading BIOS, chipset beta drivers or gpu beta drivers. Don't listen to them. Have some fun!;-) Ulf B (not that serious after all)

You should follow your own advice then Ulf B.:-) Your hardware spec you quote in a thread below is way below par then:Core2Duo X6800 3.3GHz4GB RAM Corsair XMS2-8500C5BFG 8800GTX, Creative SB X-FiFSX Acc/SP2, Vista 32I mean, that X6800 is old school - must be 2006 vintage. And surely there is faster RAM and video cards out there right now. Even your sound card is not top of the line. So you better get down to your computer super store and watch them rub their hands together!;-)Seriously though, I am sure you are aiming this at me with my recent (three letter word that means breast that starts with t, ends with t and has an i in the middle!)-for-tat with Nick_N. I assure you that I haven't cracked out FSXMark07 for months until yesterday when I wanted to make a point. Admitedly, I don't fly FSX much as I still find pockets of unacceptable performance in the product (not that I am otherwise benchmarking it as you suggest ;-)), so it remains a curiosity for now. I fly FS9 quite a lot, in fact I have just completed a lap of the world in Concorde over the last week, and on VATSIM too. No benchmarking was involved in that I promise, even after I upgraded my BIOS and changed my CPU overclock. FS9 just runs too darn well out of the box on a modern system for it to be worth the benchmarking/tweaking effort! :-)Gary

>You should follow your own advice then Ulf B.:-) Your>hardware spec you quote in a thread below is way below par>then:Yes, It's time for me to build me a new pc. I'm just waiting for the a bios of a specific x48 mobo to stabilize. And your right regarding my Corsair memory. Time for some new DD3 stuff. I'll ditch my old 8800GTX card when nVIDIA or ATI releases some serious stuff ;-)>Seriously though, I am sure you are aiming this at me >with my recent (three letter word that means breast >that starts with t, ends with t and has an i in the >middle!)-for-tat with Nick_N.I'm aiming my recommendation to simmers that got money to spend and wanna have fun with FSX. All this baloney about buying 8800GT cards and such might fool these simmers to make the wrong decions. The post is certainly not aimed at the hardcore hardware gurus.Acquiring knowledge is very stimulating. Sharing the knowledge is for most people very stimulating as well. Me and other simmers appreciate that you, Nick and other gurus spend time fooling around with all kind of tweaks and share your results. I learn a lot from reading these posts. So keep posting!Ulf B (still not that serious)Core2Duo X6800 3.3GHz4GB RAM Corsair XMS2-8500C5BFG 8800GTX, Creative SB X-FiFSX Acc/SP2, Vista 32

The general rule that usually works with hardware (if you don't have an unlimited budget) is pick the best, then drop down one rung. This is usually 80-90% of the performance for 50-60% of the price.ie, 8800GT vs 8800GTX, P35/X38 vs X48. An exception is in CPUs...pick the best reasonably priced one that can overclock close to or match the most expensive one (re: Q9450 vs Q9650, Opteron 1212 vs Opteron 1220).EDIT: Whoops, saw you were refering to people with money to spend. Even if you have money, sometimes you want to back off the highest end...X48...the CPU upgrade path for this chipset ends in Q4. I'd get a P35 or X38.

Why you list '2. Buy a XP Pro license (no OEM stuff)'I always purchased XP OEM. Comes with a license ya know.

Yeah,Your right. If you got a lot of money to spend, you would naturally buy a new OEM license with every new pc purchase/build ;-)But I was thinking of a situation where you cannot obtain a XP license any more. Only Vista OEMs available. And as an OEM license is only valid for a specific computer/mobo, I'd say that it might be wise to get a real license, that you legally may install on any new computer you buy or build.Ulf B (definitely not serious)

>1. Don't pay any attention to costs. It's all about TOYS and>it's FUN!yup.>2. Buy a XP Pro license (no OEM stuff).no. Buy Vista Ultimate OEM from your hardware dealer. As a system builder (you do build your own...) you're entitled to it.It's exactly the same as the retail version, except you don't get the fancy box and the print on the disk is a bit different.>3. Do you wanna build the computer yourself? Go to item #5.>4. Buy yourself the most expensive DELL home stationary>computer. Jump to item #6.I'd not go for Dell but Alienware (I know, they're owned by Dell) or another shop specialising in high end gaming machines if I wouldn't build my own.>5. Buy the best, and maybe the most expensive, mobo, cpu, gpu,>memory, disks (6 1TB disks raid0 to 3 2TB disks) soundcards,RAID0 won't do anything. RAID5 does, but is irrelevant.>encasement and psu that you can find on the market and make>sure that the parts work together. Watercooled stuff is>allways nice.I'd jump straight to liquid nitrogen cooled. After all, according to rule #1 the extra price doesn't matter and it's cool (literally).

jwenting,Thanks for your input. Very much appreciated :-)Ulf B