At the end of the month, I'll be getting a sizable paycheck, and I figure it's time to take FSX off my 3 year old laptop and give it a proper home. I've scoped out parts that will lead to a similar build my brother uses for FS9, and I want to know if FSX will run decently well given mid to high graphics settings. I'm not looking for a system that can max out all the visuals, just something to give my overworked laptop a break.The build:Intel i7-960 3.2 GHzASUS P6X58D Premium moboATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB3x2GB DDR3 1333 MHz CL7 RAMWD VelociRaptor 150GB master HDWD Caviar Green 2TB slave HD (where FSX will sit)My brother has a 650W PSU from his old rig that I can use for this build, and I've already found a case.Is this build good enough to get decent performance out of FSX?

At the end of the month, I'll be getting a sizable paycheck, and I figure it's time to take FSX off my 3 year old laptop and give it a proper home. I've scoped out parts that will lead to a similar build my brother uses for FS9, and I want to know if FSX will run decently well given mid to high graphics settings. I'm not looking for a system that can max out all the visuals, just something to give my overworked laptop a break.The build:Intel i7-960 3.2 GHzASUS P6X58D Premium moboATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB3x2GB DDR3 1333 MHz CL7 RAMWD VelociRaptor 150GB master HDWD Caviar Green 2TB slave HD (where FSX will sit)My brother has a 650W PSU from his old rig that I can use for this build, and I've already found a case.Is this build good enough to get decent performance out of FSX?

It is best to run an i7 in the 4.0GHz+ range which requires overclocking, so I would suggest changing to an i7 930 which will overclock to 4.0Ghz+ on air. You will need a good cpu cooler/fan as well. You can also go with a standard ASUS P6T. This will save you around $300, which I would than divert to purchasing an nVidia GTX 285, which is a much better card for FSX than the ATI 5770. As for the memory, go for DDR3 1600Mhz or more with the lowest latency you can afford. As for the hard drives, I would stick with Caviar Black or a Velociraptor for the FSX drive.Take my advice, if you can afford to go with the equipment I suggested, you will be spending around the same amount or a little more, but the performance will be far greater and your build will run FSX near it's maximum capacity. It is best to spend a little more and not wish you would have got better components and have to spend more money again. I learned that lesson, as within a month of building my new system, I already upgraded the GPU from a GTX 260 to a 275, and I ditched my Caviar Blue for 2 Kingston 64GB SSD drives.

My main concern is with the overclocking; I'm not a fan of it, having had stability issues before.I should have also mentioned that while I'm building it for FSX, this rig will be used for other hardware-intensive purposes (namely HD video editing).Didn't know I could get away with a P6T, though; I just assumed the P6X58D would be better.Thanks for the advice!

My main concern is with the overclocking; I'm not a fan of it, having had stability issues before.I should have also mentioned that while I'm building it for FSX, this rig will be used for other hardware-intensive purposes (namely HD video editing).Didn't know I could get away with a P6T, though; I just assumed the P6X58D would be better.Thanks for the advice!

If you are going to be doing video work, and/or playing other games, I would suggest an ATI card. The 5770/5850/5870 would all be good, just depends on how much you want to spend. The ATI cards have more shader cores, perform very well, and use less power when compared to nVidia cards. For FSX, nVidia reigns supreme because their shader cores are much faster, so they allow for higher image quality settings, especially with the GTX 470/480.