Hi everyone! Ive only posted a few times here and have received awesome help from the user groups so far, so Im hoping you can help once again in offering opinions.Im in the market for a new system with a very high budget. Ive been doing some looking around at different components, and am completely lost in what exactly to look for to run FSX with several addons, at the highest quality with the best performance. I know FSX will not utilise the features of a Quad core, but I also want to be ready for the next version of FS which undoubedly will have even higher system requirements. Having said that, Ive heard that FS11 will be setup for Quad, meaning investing in a Quad now might not be a bad idea..Trying to narrow down specific models of components is even more indepth and Im lost there too. So I guess what Im asking is, remove money factor from consideration and please suggest the specs of components such as video (nvidia preferred) and sound card, motherboard (ASUS preferred), CPU (Intel preferred) and power requirements, liquid or non-liquid cooling and any other pertenant specs. I want to avoid being forced into using Vista, unless its really recommended. So far, my copy of Vista went in the garbage a few months ago and XP is here to stay as long as possible.Finally- monitor configuration. I already have the 3H2G running 3 19" non-ws. I'd like to go upto 3x24" widescreen; possibly as high as 35" single main monitor plus two additional 'panel' monitors. Which of the above would be more ideal? I'd like the max resoultion possible, and Im not sure how monitors bigger than 24" relate to a 19" 1280x1024 res setting. Your thoughts and idea will be appreciated, I assure you!! :)KD

HiMy opinion as follows:CPU: Q9650 (or the same stepping QX9770 if you want an unlocked multiplier). A high end quad core is a MUCH better bet than a dual core for FSX with complex addons. The 1600 MHz FSB of the QX9770 allows you to run a 2:1 CPU/RAM ration with 1600Mhz DDR3 - a nice sweet spot.Mobo: Decide if you want nVidia chipset (for SLI) or Intel chipset (for crossfire). 790i (evga or asus) if nVidia/SLI. x48 (gigabyte or asus) if Intel/crossfire. What do I suggest? Both are fine but I would most probably go with a Intel chipset if I was buying today.GPU: For 32bit OS I recommend a 4870 with 512MB DDR5. For 64bit OS the 4870 with 1GB DDR5 is the best bet. SLI/crossfire has very little benefit wih FSX (it does in a lot of other games though...)RAM: 2x2GB of dual channel DDR3 CAS7 1600MhzHDD's: This a matter of opinion. If you have enough cash look at some of Intel's SSD's (solid state drives) for your OS and perhaps a separate one for FSX. RAID seems to have little impact with FSX. The 300GB Velicoraptor HDD is well worth a look. For extra drives the new 1.5TB HDD's are a good deal nowadays.PSU: PC Power & Cooling 750W or greater. Corsair HX1000W is not a bad choice either.CPU Cooling: Thermalright ultra 120 (in push-pull dual fan config) or one of the new Noctua coolers. Water cooling becomes a neccesity if you really want to push your quad core beyond 4GHz+.OS: Windows XP Pro SP3 32-bit with /3GB /Userva=2560 switch. Vista 64-bit would be a better I suspect but there are issues as you mention. Multi-monitor set ups are not my speciality so hopefully someone else can make some suggestions...Having said all that...Should you wait a few weeks for Core i7/x58? This is a hard one to answer right now as there are no FSX performance benchmarks available for this platform. If money is really no object then I say wait a little bit and get the Core i7 965 Extreme edition. Performance will certainly not be WORSE than QX9770. 1st generation platforms have their drawbacks, though the i7/x58 looks pretty solid and by the time of release the BIOS issues should all be sorted.Hope this helpsKonrad