hey guys, i am getting a new rig to get ready for the new pmdg products here is what i got now. (before the new computer)gateway dx w/intel q6600 2.4ghz8gb ddr2nvidia 8800gtoriginal motherboardNow, here is my new rig, (comming in next week!)COOLER MASTER HAF Mini 922Asus rampage extreme 2 motherboardIntel i7 920 (going to be over clocked to 3.5ghz)OCZ 6 gb ddr3 at 1600mhz and finally i am getting another nvidia 8800gt to go into SLI with the one that i have.SO, what do you guys think will i see much of an improvement?? ( this is an honest question.)Denis ndregjoni

I'm running an I7 920 @3.4 ghz (in turbo) with 6gb ddr3 1600 and an Nvidia 285GTX on an Asus P6T delux and I get very satisfying performance, even with addon weather, airports and complex aircraft. Don't expect 100 fps, but you should be pleasantly surprised.

SLI has almost no effect in FSX, so that's probably unnecessary unless you're playing other games. Even then though, a single newer card will easily outperform two 8800GTs...

As noted, the processor tends to be the thing with FSX rather than the graphics card. The graphics card can actually be fairly cack and FSX will still be okay providing the RAM and processor are good, which is why you find that even laptops with on-board graphics that don't even support pixel shader 2.0 can run FSX fairly well so long as the RAM is sufficient and the processor is fairly newish. For example, I have a three year old laptop with an Intel Centrino Duo processor and just two gigs of RAM that can run FSX smoothly with the autogen on full tilt.The amount and speed of the RAM and the bus speeds the motherboard can handle, which starts coming into play with regard to overclocking multipliers as well as affecting how effective the RAM will be too, are much more important than the graphics card with FSX, since at its heart, FSX is not doing anywhere near the kind of fancy graphics tricks that the latest first person shooter and racing games are doing. If you play those types of games, that's when your SLI stuff will start paying for its keep.Watch out for the Power Supply Unit, which will need to be a good quality heavy duty one that can deliver a strong and steady voltage to all the rails; not all PSUs are created equal, and the PSU is a component people often overlook in terms of how it can contribute to system stability. Decent cooling fans that can keep the air moving inside your case efficiently across the heat sinks and vent the hot air out of your case properly is important too. These things are especially true if you are overclocking, as overclocked processors that get too hot, or don't get a good solid voltage, can start losing data integrity, and with FSX, which makes your CPU work hard, that can mean a lack of system stability if everything is not hunky dory.If all the other bits and pieces are as good as the components you list, then I suspect you should get very good performance. You'll probably find that the DDR3 RAM will be one of the things that helps the most.Al

I agree with Al on the power supply - I love the Corsair ones and they've been rated at the top for several years now. The 750 or 850 model is what I'd go for.

With FSX I cannot stress how important the CPU cooler is, with my experience even the best i7s will struggle and FSX can end up with a slideshow if left on stock speeds. Spend $60-$100 for a good one and overclock it like mad. Also make sure that your mobo and power supply is overclock-friendly.

thanks for all the great tips guys, my last question is: what can resolve the frame rate oscillations when flying around, by that i mean when the frames are around like 30-40 for a couple of seconds and then they drop to like 7 or 10 for a few seconds and then they come back up? would this be a graphics card issue? this is prominant when i am panning the camera around in SPOT view, and the smoothness of the camera starts to glitch. **this is of course in my old set up, because i have not gotten my new one yet**Thanks again for all the help!! :( Denis NDregjoni

Get rid of the CPU. You should look for something that is either quad core or something that is at least 3.0Ghz. I have the q6600 and don't expect amazing frames on ultra high or even high for that matter but it could be because I don't have an amazing graphics card or ram.

You will see an improvment, BUT if its for FSX you will get a bottleneck if you don't upgrade to a 9800GT 1gb. or higher..

With FSX I cannot stress how important the CPU cooler is, with my experience even the best i7s will struggle and FSX can end up with a slideshow if left on stock speeds. Spend $60-$100 for a good one and overclock it like mad. Also make sure that your mobo and power supply is overclock-friendly.

This is true. I have my i7 920 running at 4.2ghz with a Venomous X CPU cooler paired with a Scythe Ultra Kaze 3000rpm fan. My max load temp is 61 degrees C with this combo. With my PMDG aircraft and REX, UTX, GTX, plus very high settings (max LOD, Scenery, autogen), I get 20-30 fps flying out of KLAX on VATSIM.Here is my setup:Cooler Master HAF 922OCZ Fatal1ty 700w PSUASUS P6T motherboardIntel i7 920 Thermalright Venomous X cpu coolerOCZ Gold 3x2GB DDR3 1600BFG GTX 275 OC edition GPUWestern Digital Caviar Blue 7200rpm 320GB Windows 7 Premium 64bitACER 22" 1680x1050 LCD monitorTrackIR 4

Get rid of the CPU. You should look for something that is either quad core or something that is at least 3.0Ghz. I have the q6600 and don't expect amazing frames on ultra high or even high for that matter but it could be because I don't have an amazing graphics card or ram.

The CPU he picked is a quad and it's probably the best overclocker out of the whole i7 lineup, the CPU is fine.