I'm about to take out a loan for college and I'll be accounting for a nice desktop in the amount i take... I'm figuring around $3000.what's the latest greatest out there to run FSX? I've been at Air Force Basic Training, and now I'm at Tech school... so i've been out of the loop for a while...I want XP for sure, not jumping to vista yet... I'm figuring any desktop that can run FSX wont have a problem with other new games, so i'd like to build around running FSX, especially since i'll be using it for training purposes as I'll be majoring in Flight Science...The only other game it absolutely must be able to run is Tribes 2... lol

bump

Well, CPU:either go with the tried and true, and overclock it - the Q6600or the E8500, and overclock that, or the Q9450, and overclock it lolmotherboard, x48 or 790i, something that takes DDR3 RAMVista 64bit4GB DDR3 RAM, OCZ, Mushkin etcand either a 8800GT (decent mid-high end card), or 8800GTX video cardWith a Corsair 620w power supply....you're good to go

Buy XP immediately if you want a retail copy. Sales halt end of this month. I'm sure you will be able to get an OEM copy after that for a while, but that comes with the risk of it being tied to the hardware it's first installed on. Size of the risk varies, according to various sources, but it exists.As for the rest, you'll have to weigh all the recommendations for yourself anyway, but I'd go with a P35 chipset board and 4 GB PC 6400 DDR2 RAM, and a Q6600 overclocked to 3.6 on air, and wait a year or so for Nehalem and the X58 boards before even thinking of upgrading to DDR3 solutions, on cost alone, let alone maturity of the platform and peripherals. Video card solutions are in flux at the moment. Wait till the end of the month at least to see what all the new options are. This would be a cost effective, reasonable approximation of the best solution. If money is no object, ....... send it to me, and I'll spend it wisely for you. ;-)-Doug

wait, you mean to tell me XP is not going to be sold anymore? They are forcing Vista upon us? lol...are the Vista DX10 benefits great enough to go Vista over XP?I dont know much about chipsets in mobo's, what are good combinations between mobo's and vid cards? Or do they have nothing to do with eachother?How about SLI? 2 cheaper vid card's SLI'd or one more expensive vid card runnin solo?