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Straw man time. Using the IBUYPOWER machine as an example, I came up with $939 for this:i5-2500 3.3 Ghz processor4 GB memoryNVIDIA GTX 460 graphics cardCorsair 650 Power SupplyWindows 7Everything else standardNow, what can I cut back on without losing much, and what can I add for a small cost that will give me significant improvement?I did a quick price check with HP and Dell for comparison, and they are already higher with stock machines with entry-level graphics, so the vendor is at least reasonable in price.
First! make sure if you decide to buy that particular computer or any other for that matter from ibuypower, I believe they are offering a free upgrade to corsair dominator ram, so make sure you check the bubble on that, it should say Corsair XMS3 Dominator [+$0].As to your question, the above computer will run FSX and anything else available today for that matter. So the the thing is, if you wanted to cut back, I would start with the video card, once you find an acceptable replacement, you would probably be able to get a lower PSU. As an example if you went with the Radeon 6570 you only need a 500W PSU, bringing your total to a quite acceptable $767. As to the performance of that particular card, I can't say, I've only used nVidia for the last 8 years. What you would want to do now is a little research on video cards, the best place to start is http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php where you can do a side by side comparison.You can also cut back a little here and there, for instance if you have a mouse a keyboard, you can select none, that will save you a whole $6, but personally I'd rather have a new keyboard and mouse for $6. You can cut back on the case if you wanted, look for the [-$], but in the long run none of that will bring it down much and I think you'll agree that case looks 10x better than any HP case.One more thing, if you were to get the above computer, I think your investment would be protected for a while, the rate at which computer technology becomes obsolete has slowed down quite a bit in the last few years, like I said, my last computer (as mentioned in previous posts) is still good to run mostly everything, even a simple install of FSX (which is the BEAST).Finally, scratch that, it comes with a standard 3 year limited warranty and tech support for life.I know, computers are expensive, but for what you get, it's a fair price, especially if you like the convienence of a pre-built computer geared toward gaming, and none of that HP software crap that runs in the background and slows down your computer.Hope this helps.

Jeff

Commercial | Instrument | Multi-Engine Land

AMD 5600X, RTX3070, 32MB RAM, 2TB SSD

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There is really nothing I would change there. The 650TX is the cheapest non generic(?) PSU and the GTX is the cheapest Nvidia GPU (going with NVidia for FS is a no brainer)If you can get the RAM Jeff said, go ahead and get it, but the rest is already the best value for a FS machine available in IBUYPOWER IMO.You could maybe save some $100 - 150 switching to AMD. It should be good enough for FS9, although personally I would go with that Intel setup for future proofing, but that's up to you

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There is really nothing I would change there. The 650TX is the cheapest non generic(?) PSU and the GTX is the cheapest Nvidia GPU (going with NVidia for FS is a no brainer)If you can get the RAM Jeff said, go ahead and get it, but the rest is already the best value for a FS machine available in IBUYPOWER IMO.You could maybe save some $100 - 150 switching to AMD. It should be good enough for FS9, although personally I would go with that Intel setup for future proofing, but that's up to you
Yeah, I'm partial to Intel, too.How about the vendor? Are there others I should consider? Like I said, he's got Dell and HP beat.

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Thanks for all the help. My old relic doesn't even boot, despite replacing the CPU. So, I ordered a new machine, basically the same one I described above. I've ordered a fully copy of XP, so I can continue to use my Gameport yoke and throttle. The disk is OK, so I can recover all my custom stuff by putting the disk on another machine on my home network, in case the new one doesn't like the old disk.

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