Good evening all,i'm looking at upgrading my current system from ; Processor1.10 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP128 kilobyte primary memory cache512 kilobyte secondary memory cache Drives41.16 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity12.84 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space Circuit BoardBoard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7N8X-X REV 2.xxBus Clock: 100 megahertzBIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS A7N8X-X ACPI BIOS Rev 1006 08/19/2003 Memory Ram512 Megabytes Installed MemorySlot 'DDR1' has 256 MBSlot 'DDR2' has 256 MBSlot 'DDR3' is Empty Graphics CardRADEON 9600 SERIES [Display adapter]RADEON 9600 SERIES - Secondary [Display adapter]I have about £400 to spend,could you please tell me what the best set up would be including graphics card.I like to add alot of AI packages which on my current system are not working too well.Also will Windows 7 be ok,or shll i stick with XP?Many thank's in advance.

Good evening all,i'm looking at upgrading my current system from ; Processor1.10 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP128 kilobyte primary memory cache512 kilobyte secondary memory cache Drives41.16 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity12.84 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space Circuit BoardBoard: ASUSTeK Computer INC. A7N8X-X REV 2.xxBus Clock: 100 megahertzBIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS A7N8X-X ACPI BIOS Rev 1006 08/19/2003 Memory Ram512 Megabytes Installed MemorySlot 'DDR1' has 256 MBSlot 'DDR2' has 256 MBSlot 'DDR3' is Empty Graphics CardRADEON 9600 SERIES [Display adapter]RADEON 9600 SERIES - Secondary [Display adapter]I have about £400 to spend,could you please tell me what the best set up would be including graphics card.I like to add alot of AI packages which on my current system are not working too well.Also will Windows 7 be ok,or shll i stick with XP?Many thank's in advance.

If I had 400 pound I would but very good water cooler and buy good cpu i7 and overclock it. You will get good perfomance in FS. But you need good coller to do not overheat CPU. :)

Best bet with £400 is see if PCWorld or local computer shops have any re-furbs with gaming specs. Worth a try.

Since you said 400 Quid as opposed to Dollars, I'm presuming you are in the UK, and that's lucky because that means you'll be able to nip down to WHSmiths and buy a copy of Custom PC Magazine, which you will find regularly contains articles such as 'build the ultimate budget gaming machine for under 399 quid' (no I'm not making that up, they really do tend to choose under 400 quid as the target). You could be cheeky and simply read the magazine in the shop of course instead of buying it, but you might find that the current issue has no article of that kind in it, in which case you might want to look at the back issues listed in it and get one of those.Alternatively, another way to go about it is to do what I usually do when building a PC with that kind of price target...1. Go to somewhere like Micro Direct's website and find a processor that costs around 100 quid, then note its socket type (don't forget to add the cost of a fan unit to go with the processor, probably a tenner of so, but some processors come with one anyway, so you may not have to).2. Next, go to the motherboard section and find the best motherboard you can for about 100 quid which has the socket type which is the same as the processor you have your eye on, and look in the specs for that motherboard to check it supports that processor type.3. (optional) Next, if your current power supply unit in your PC is a bit weak (i.e less than about 550 watts), you might want to throw in a better power supply unit, or you might if you are lucky be okay with the one you presently have in your PC.4. Next, check the RAM type your motherboard of choice supports (specifically the bus speeds the motherboard supports and the RAM socket type and number of slots it has) then get at least 3Gb of suitable RAM (you'll probably want DDR3 RAM, so make sure the motherboard you have your eye on supports that). The RAM will probably cost about 60 quid or so, maybe more but you tend to find buying a set of it reduces the cost, so the more the merrier (adjust how much you buy based on what cash you have left from your calculations on the cost of these other components).5. This means we're into about 260 quid so far if you didn't have to buy a new PSU, leaving you about 140 quid for a graphics card assuming you are going to use your existing PC case to fit all that into. 140 quid will get you a fairly decent graphics card, not the best, but certainly adequate for today's computer games, and FSX isn't especially demanding on graphics cards anyway.6. Don't forget to get some heat sink paste (probably 2 quid for a tube of it), as you may need to spread that on the processor before attaching the cooling fan if it doesn't have a self adhesive pad with it.7. Earth yourself by touching a radiator when you get home with all that stuff, and then fit it all together, using the hard disk drives you currently have.8. Whizz around the FS sky marveling at the autogen and AI planes all over the place.Al

Hi,I'd go with what Chock says - better a re-build if £400 quid is your limit. I'd add though, try and find a motherboard bundle (matching board, processor, memory etc is not always that straightforward). I usually use Novatech for such deals, but a look on their site recently didnt show much choice.Also, consider a much larger hard disk - if you like addons, at least 100Gb + for addons these days is quite normal I think.Dave

Good evening all....this is what i'm looking at please tell me the ups and downs of it for fs9 with plenty of ai on the go.CPU Q8300 Mobo GA-G41MT-D3 IG41RAM Kingston 4 gb DDR3 1333 MHZGFX ATI RADEON HD 5770HARD DRIVE WD10EARS 64MB WINDOWS 7