here are my stats...Intel i7-980XEVGA X58 Classified 3X SLI/Crossfire12GB DDR3 Corsair Dominator DHX2X 1TB HD's (my question here is if i should set them to raid 0 or keep them in seperate ops. / also, the reason im getting 2 is for one to operate the OS and the other for gaming.)2X SLI NVIDIA GTX 285 (or would it be better to get a ATI Radeon HD 5970? / also, im running other games on my comp.)Liquid cooling for CPU and Graphic cardsOverclock to between 4.2 and 4.4Vista Home prem. 64 bit (or would it be better to go back to XP SP2 64 bit home prem.?)if anyone could awnser my questions, it would be very helful!EDIT: i also am wondering if i where to get a 5970 over a 285, would it really do that much more for FSX in terms of graphics and FPS (would the 285 also do these things?). otherwise, it would be used on some of my super games i have. thanks.

Never ever overkill!But why not used Windows 7 64?

Lol, dont go for ATI's card dont like FS and ATI don't want to fix related issues with them. That should be excellent, I reckon in the default C172 and around a light default area you should get an easy 50FPS. Enjoy :)

For the video card, do not use Crossfire or SLI and wait for Nvidia to release their next video card pretty soon here.

I wouldn't go with Nvidia's newst cardest staright away.. They may not be best friends with FSX.

Jetline Systems have made an overview of performances from different components, worth a look.

I read somewhere, that unless you are using a 400$ plus raid card, trying to set up raid drives off your motherboard is not worth it.

sweet! the reason why im going GTX 285 is because they are the best for FSX and other games for what i need.

There was a recent thread in the Hardware forum RE the 980, might want to check it out.http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=279479I'd go with Windows 7 Pro x64 instead of VistaForget the RAID, spring for the extra bucks and get a SSD, I'd get the Intel X25M and get a 1TB 7200rpm drive for the rest of your games/OS datahttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...7-023-_-Productoh, one more thing, nvidia's GTX480 is "supposed" to be out early April, might want to take that into consideration before you pull the trigger on a GTX285

Whether this is overkill or not depends on whether you play games besides FS. If the answer is no, then it most definitely is.1. Early adopters of 980X hex-core CPU haven't seen much improvement over the quads in FSX. This is probably because FSX does most of its work in the first two threads - the rest is just small tasks related to scenery streaming.2. SLI video cards won't have much effect for you in FSX because it's a CPU limited engine.3. 12GB of RAM is total overkill for anything but high-end content creation apps like video or sound editing.4. That motherboard is also massive overkill unless you intend to actually use 3 way SLI etc.If you're playing other modern games and have the cash to burn, then by all means go for it, but for FS, this isn't going to do much more than a system that costs 1/3rd or 1/4th the price.

Just a footnote that Microsoft is going to be canning support for Windows XP SP2... make sure that SP3 is installed on all XP systems before the 13 July 2010 to retain extended support until 8 April 2014...I would go with Windows 7 64... far better than Vista...That system is a killer... though I wouldn't personally pay for the 6-core 980 unless I knew I could really use it to its full extent...With the correct cooling system, you can go for a much cheaper processor than the 980X and still get rocketing performance...You have to build according to your current AND future requirements, unless of course money is not an issue :)Andrew