I currently have a modest system consisiting of an Asus P5B motherboard with a QX6800 overclocked to 3.4 GZH and a GTX280. The operating system is Vista 64. This has served me well up to now and I am trying to squeeze out every bit of performance before a possible upgrade early to middle of next year. This is the question to the myriad of experts that frequent this forum. Performance gains by upgrading to a GTX 580 and changing the HD to a WD VelociRaptor. These two items may be kept in the upgrade at a later date. Thanks in advance Andrew Dixon

Hi Andrew, Although, I don't think your existing CPU will be able to take maximum advantage of the 580 GTX, it would certainly be helpful and set you up for next year's rebuild. I am not so sure of the raptors though as I am a fully converted SSD guy now, but either will give you better loading times. That being said, if you are going to wait until next year to do an upgrade, I would hold off on any GPU or drive in order to have what might be a better match with what systems may be available at that time. Meanwhile, your 280 GTX is great at maximizing the processing speed available from the QX6800. IMHO, a better move might be to overclock your CPU as far as it will go, after adding an appropriate heatsink solution, if needed. That will give your machine a much better bang for the buck for a year. In any case, excellent luck! Kind regards,

Good advise Stephen, the QX6800 is a 65nm, they produce a lot of heat and are not the best overclockers, you need a very good heatsink to push this baby further, they also need a lot of voltage, these chip don't like high temp Tcase 64.5C You probably are running DDR2 memory I assume so you still limited by that, the 285 is a good card for your hardware, the only use I can see for the 580 will be using very high resolution on several monitors on the system you have right now. A good GTX 580 will run you at around $525.00, (usd) you'll be better with a SB 2500K for $219.99 http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115072 a decent mobo http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813128492 and 1600MHz memory http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820231444 or if you want 8GB http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820226179 and you'll be right around $525.00us, that is the best upgrade you can do for that amount of money and you still can use your GTX 285 and upgrade the card later. The Vraptor is a good HD for FSX without breaking the bank but what I posted above will give you the best bang for your buck as of now.

Thanks Alain and Stephen, Great advice as usual! Andrew Dixon