Hey guys,Well the chief financial officer in the family is giving me the go-ahead to upgrade my desktop and I need some advice. This is basically the first, full blown upgrade in five years, to a seven year old computer. Here's my current specs:Dell Dimension 4600P4 @ 2.4 ghz2MB PC3200 RAMNvidia 6600GT 128MBI'm currently running FS9 at a woeful 10fps with payware aircraft, scenery, weather, and VATSIM at mid-range settings. I've never been able to run FS9 maxed out. I currently own a copy of FSX and I will be making the jump finally. This new computer will have both FSX and FS9 installed. I'll be running payware for both installs. This is what I've configured through ibuypower. I do not plan on building my own and will let somebody else do the gruntwork for me this time around. Here's the configured system:Case Thermaltake V9 Gaming Tower Case-Blue Processor Intel

You have a motherboard with Crossfire (ATI), and a single Nvidia card. While it will run the NV card just fine, this seems odd. Unless you are planning to add two ATI cards, save some $$ and go with non-Crossfire/SLI motherboard. KJ

You have a motherboard with Crossfire (ATI), and a single Nvidia card. While it will run the NV card just fine, this seems odd. Unless you are planning to add two ATI cards, save some $ and go with non-Crossfire/SLI motherboard. KJ

All modern Intel motherboards with more than one PCI-e graphics slot (read: all ATX socket 1366 and most 1156 motherboards) have support for CF and SLI. Blake: your system configuration looks pretty good. I must give you the standard disclaimer about being able to save money/have faster components by building it yourself, though.

You have a motherboard with Crossfire (ATI), and a single Nvidia card. While it will run the NV card just fine, this seems odd. Unless you are planning to add two ATI cards, save some $$ and go with non-Crossfire/SLI motherboard. KJ

Take a closer look at motherboards using the Intel X58 chipset.Most if not all motherboards using the X58 chipset support Cross Fire and most decent ones also support Nvidia

Techguy,Understood and I wish I did have the experience to build it myself. I am glad though that it looks to be a decent set up with easy upgradibility in the future. I've been reading your posts and replies, so I sort of had an idea of which components I needed to look into. Many thanks for the help sir. I'll finally be able to fly my Pond Racer in FSX :( Blake