Gents - I'm keen to get FS9 off my iMac (the wife is always moaning at me because she needs to get on it) and to be honest although the screen itself is lovely the performance of FS9 is not particularly great (2.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 256k ATI Radeon) and it gets crazily hot in the corner where the GPU, much more than it ever does booted into OSX.Thankfully my workplace are replacing a load of XP hardware for Win 7 stuff so I've just become the proud owner of a couple of HP Pavillion Workstations, three HP LCD monitors and the peripherals. My plan is to use one of them to run ASE, Radar Contact, FSNav, Topcat, etc and gut the other to bring it up to spec to run FS9 nice and smoothly. I ideally only want to spend a few hundred pounds on this (c. 300-400 dollars if you're a dollars man) as ultimately I'd like to build a Core i7 super-rig that will chew FSX a new backside so this is a 'transitional' solution. I think the OEM spec is a 1.8 GHz Pentium, 128k graphics and 4GB of RAM so clearly apart from the RAM (and I don't know what spec that is either) then it's a pretty low end unit and will need some new hardware. I'll know the exact spec when I get it tomorrow but what would you say would be a good GPU/CPU/mobo combination for FS9 that should slot in to a HP chassis without too much hassle? I know that it might be easier just to junk the whole thing and build something from scratch but without spelling it out, it's easier to install the new hardware in the HP case so that not too many questions are asked, if you know what I mean by the lady of house... Thanks in advance guys.

Those workstations probably use a small form factor (SFF). You won't get far upgrading components, and a modern GPU isn't going to fit in that chassis. In other words, I doubt you'll be able to install new hardware into the HP chassis. I would recommend waiting to get the workstations to see what you have. After you size up the complete specs and tell us here, we can go from there!I would plan on building a budget system with a new case, or holding on to what you have until you're ready for that FSX system. For what it's worth I can build a budget FS9 rig for around $450-$500.

Well guys I've got it home and it's not quite a stellar performer. 1.8Ghz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia Quattro 128MB and a mighty 2 GB of RAM. With the default 777 at EHAM, I get - wait for it - 7fps!Here are some pics of the inside of it. It's not a SFF and certainly from my novice eyes the GPU is easily replaceable - the motherboard I'm not so sure. Still wondering if it's viable to junk the mobo, GPU and CPU, slot in a bigger HDD and probably a new power supply, as this one is only rated up to 110W. Any thoughts, gents?

Upgrading the video card to a 8600GT or somthing may help you along abit - but don't expect miracles with those systems........ I hope they were free :-) I ran FS9 fluently on an AMD 3700+, 1GB ram, and a 6600GT AGP 128mb for years.