New PC Specs - Help Needed

[Guest slayer91]

Hello,I will be getting a new PC in the next 2-4 wks and would advice from FSX users on what they thinks of my suggested specs.The main use for the PC will be for FSX and online flying. CPU.From my research, FSX is mainly CPU (Speed)driven. There appears to be no clear winner on the dual core/quad core arguement although I think a quad core overclocked seems to be the way forward. I am also concious that Intel will be launching Nethalam late this year which will require anew motherboard.Option: E8400 or E8500 @3GH and overclock it.MotherboardFSX does not appear to get any huge gain with SLI or Crossfire, so a P35 motherboard that supports overclocking is my suggestion here.Gigabyte GA-P35T-DS3P ,Intel P35, ATX, DDR3, PCI-ExpressMemoryDDR2 memory is very cheap so either 4 or 8gb here depending if I go with a 32bit or 64bit OS4GB PC6400 DDR2-800 SDRAMVideo Card.ATI is back with a bang. The 4870 seems to be a winner here, only worry is resolution of my monitor. Also the 4870x2 is out on Aug 12th. HIS HD 4870 GDDR5 512MB HDMI Dual-DVI/TVHard DriveFSX performance seem to be relatively unaffected. Also long as the latest and fastest 7200rpm drives are used.2x Samsung F1 750GBPSU.600 -700W and quiet!!!Open to suggestionsMonitor(s)Have an existing Dell 20" and will be adding a 24"Iiyama ProLite B2403WS, 24"I will be using my existing LILAN tower and getting a cheaper case for my existing PC.I really would appreciate some feedback from users on any suggestions they would make. Particularly around the motherboard/CPU/Video card. RegardsLiam

[Guest D17S]

Go with the Q6600. It has a 9X multi and will run at 3.6. Comparable duals run at 4.0. Quad scenery loading advantage and having an on-deck double (in performance) sitting in the socket way outweights that 10% FPS advantage a faster dual will provide. Go with a DDR2 mobo. DDR3 is just more expensive and provides no advantage. 4Gs-O-Ram is plenty. DDR2-800 is the stuff you want. O/Cingram provides no advantage.64 bit op system all the way. End the OOMs.Anything beyond an 8800GT will provide no advantage for FS. Crysis is another matter, entirely.HD and PS are fine.Don't worry about Nahalem. So far it's looking like a 20% boost at best. New builds should get 1000% (10X), so the next-next gen Sandy Bridge with 40 cores is your next build target.

[DescendDescend 25]

I went the other way to what Sam has proposed as, for me, clock speed and memory bandwith are everything. My updated rig has now eliminated stutters and increase the frame rate by about 40% compared with my E6700/DDR2 667 rig which was overclocked to 3.3Ghz.Furthermore there is more to come depending on how hot and how many volts you want.