Hello all, - I am one of those holdover simmers still going strong with FS9. In the mean time I have a system that runs FS9 relatively well, but I do struggle with smoothness at complex airports with high end aircraft, PMDG 747 for eg. I have $500 to spend on an upgrade and would like some suggestions for how to get the most horsepower on my budget. My current specs:Op Sys: Win XP Pro 64 I TRIED TO USE A PROFANITY HERE - AREN'T I STUPID!ip: Pentium 4 3.6Ghz Sound: Soundblaster Audigy ZSVideo: Nvidia 6400 GT 256MBDirectX: 9.0cRAM: 2Ghz PC3200 400Mhz Motherboard: Abit AS8Along with FS9 I run Track IR IV, AI Blast, and thru WideFS on a separate machine I run Active Sky v6, and Radar Contact v4.My thoughts at this time are to go to 4 gigs of RAM, and upgrade my video card (I'm not sure what kind of card I can get with all the changes that have taken place in card design, AGP vs PCI, etc. But any ideas on what to add to beef up my system and conquer FS9 once and for all would be greatly appreciated!! THANKS!!!!

P45 Mobohttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128359E8500http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E168191150362GB DDR2 ramhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E168201450349800GThttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130384Also, you might have to get a new power supply, if so, something likehttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817139002ORhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817703009Without the PSU that adds up to around 470 bucks....And I might add that adding a video card won't help your FPS issues with payware acft, you're gonna need a better cpu, which means a new mobo, and pretty much everything else I listed

Thanks a lot for the advice, it fit real well in my budget. I can throw a few extra bucks in there for a new power supply. I do have one question though, what is the measurement for CPU speed. Per your advice the E8500 is more powerful than the P4, but the E85 is only 3.17ghz versus the P4's 3.6Ghz? Again thanks for the help.

Hehe, that question....There are some techies who can answer the question better than I can. But I know the E8500 will blow your old P4 outa the water. It's not all about the clock speed....there's FSB, etc etc.

The current Core2 design was a real breakthrough for Intel. Clock for Clock, it's about 50% "faster" than the old P4. Here's a quad box parts list. This quad core easily overclocks to 3.6Ghz. It will provide a 10X (1000%) performance increase over your current single core P4. http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWi...tNumber=7159746$850, total. It will run side by side with the current i7/940 platform at 3.0Ghz.edit? 2 days later? Wowe.

Thanks for the advice gentlemen, much appreciated, I will start building the new system in about two weeks.