I am the original poster.I want to thank all of you for your input. I now need to weigh the pros and cons of eveything realizing I will never run FSX full-bore on a Mac. Basically, I don't need all the whistles and bells but I would like to run FSX smoothly with some of the niceties. Your posts put all of this in perspective.Again, thanks for taking time to help me out.

I am the original poster.I want to thank all of you for your input. I now need to weigh the pros and cons of eveything realizing I will never run FSX full-bore on a Mac. Basically, I don't need all the whistles and bells but I would like to run FSX smoothly with some of the niceties. Your posts put all of this in perspective.Again, thanks for taking time to help me out.

Mike T makes some important comments: the more you give it, the better it behaves. I started with DDR2-800 memory, and eventually became convinced to go with as fast a DDR3 as I could see fit to install, and definitely the sim performs better. You can be quite happy with less, until you experience more. If you are restricted to using one device, and need iMac, then by all means go for it. I decided to go with a Quad Extreme, so I could get maximum performance for the longest time between upgrades, and it appears I have all I need for the duration of FSX, which was my goal. Not quite as slick as a new i7 CPU, but at 4.1Ghz the Penryn Quad gets the job done, especially with low latency memory as I am set up right now. There really is no future upgrade need until something beyond FSX comes along, if it ever does, and isn't web-based. This could be my last platform unless something unpredicted comes along. In fact, you might think of grabbing a Penryn Quad that o'clocks to around 4Ghz, add a spiffy video card (my 280 GTX is fine for Crysis and everything else), get 2 sata2 drives, and put FSX on a WD Raptor. Put some $$ into good DDR3 and you will have a game platform that will clearly outperform iMac, and shouldn't cost too much I wouldn't think, though haven't checked pricing. I put some $$ into mine, but that was half because of the Extreme CPU. I wanted decent overclocking assured, since I planned on not upgrading until FSX is superceded.Q9650 @ $319, will run at 3.6 at 400Mhz FSB, easily accomplished with good memory. Might get 410FSB, or 420FSB, or more, or not.Model #: 996601 Mushkin Extreme DDR3 1600 memory: 2 x 2GB for a lousy $124. GTX280 for $224 right now. 1GB, good 'nuf for all modern games, depending on your screen res. Ample. Throw in a $50 Centaurian case, and a $119 for a 750W PC Cooling Power Supply And yer good to go.Noel