System specs are below. This is a great-running FSX rig, and I'm not looking to make any radical changes, or spend a fortune. But... I'm sort of a weather freak and running heavy weather via ASA while driving three monitors through the TripleHead2Go can sometimes bog down the system, even though I mainly handle GA VFR. I use NickN's setup advice, but have found recently that in some settings (Tongass, FTX), I've had to cut the autogen down to "dense." And even in less-demanding places, the dense setting seems to accomodate the weather better.I'm considering one or more of the following upgrades:1. RAM - move to the Mushkin DDR3 1600 6-7-6-18 that Nick has been recommending.2. Video card - upgrade to a GTX 285 (would 2 gb help in driving the TripleHead?)3. OS - install Windows 7 (I don't relish changing the OS but I'm willing.Which would help most? Which wouldn't help much at all? Should I stick with what I've got?No urgency to any of this, but as always, your advice is welcome - and appreciated.Alan

If what you have now doesn't do the trick then you're not going to find anything that will any time soon. Maybe when Sandy Bridge is available in 2011/2012.

If what you have now doesn't do the trick then you're not going to find anything that will any time soon. Maybe when Sandy Bridge is available in 2011/2012.

That's a great answer - I have no problem with that at all. Am not looking for massive performance breakthroughs. I got those when I built the system. Am just curious about incremental improvements at incremental prices (relative to the whole system cost, of course). But I'm even happier to be able to stick with what I've got and hold my wallet tight.Am open to other opinions. But "do nothing" is an OK option.Alan

If you absolutely must have more performance then you could get faster RAM (like DDR3 2000 or higher with decent timings) and move to water cooling to clock your CPU to 4.3-4.5GHz.

If you absolutely must have more performance then you could get faster RAM (like DDR3 2000 or higher with decent timings) and move to water cooling to clock your CPU to 4.3-4.5GHz.

Faster RAM is a possibility - easy enough to install and not all that expensive.I thought about water cooling when I was building the rig and decided against it - didn't think it was worth the hassle and I'm a pessimist when it comes to things like plumbing. Had bad visions of coolant mixing with motherboards and such. Performance on air at 4.0 GHz is decent enough - I'm not eager to push it.A lot of people seem happy with their GTX 285's, which came out just after I bought the 280. My first thought there is to skip a generation and wait for whatever follows the 285. But if the 285 put video performance over the top, I'd take a look.I guess at this point in the discussion, if I was going to do anything (not a given), I'd go for the RAM first, possibly the 285, definitely not the water cooling.Alan