.....I don't know enough about these things. Obviously, it's got to be outstanding for FS2k4 (for the $$$), and also be used for general household requirements.My budget is NZ$3000 / US$2100.So here goes:Intel Pentium 4 3000Mhz 800FSB1024MB DDR 400 RamATI Radeon 9600Pro 256MB AGP Video cardCreative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 PCI OEM sound card56k PCI ModemSoltek SL-86PE-L motherboard (is this any good????)Samsung Combo CR-RW & DVD driveSeagate 80GB SATA 7200rpm hard drive3.5" floppy driveProstation case with 4x51/4", 5x31/2" bays, front USB/Sound ports & 400W power supply (Huh? Again, is this suitable??)Philips 19" CRT monitorMicrosoft Keyboard/mouseCreative Inspire 2500 2.1 speakers....and various software stuff.Total: NZ$2795.00Look forward to your comments.ThanksTim

My immediate concerns are the motherboard and the video card. Soltek is not one of the big quality name brands like ASUS, Abit, MSI, etc... That's not to say it's a bad board, (seems to be based on the 865P chipset, which is a good one) but you may be left out in teh cold with respect to BIOS updates and support etc as compared to one of the more well known makers.The ATI 9600 is not as good as the 9800 - it has only half the pixel pipelines, which slows it down pretty dramatically compared to the 9800 Pro. This would be my biggest concern with the specs of this system - you really should have at least a 9800 Pro 128MB in there - don't be fooled by the amount of RAM on the card, a 128MB 9800 will easily spank a 256MB 9600...

I agree with Ryan. The Soltek isn't a terribly good board.The Asus P4P800 shouldn't be too much more, it'd be a MUCH better selection.A Radeon 9800 Pro would be better to buy also. They have dropped to $400AU, so they shouldn't be too much more than a 9600 in NZ.If this breaks the budget, consider dropping the CPU to a 2.8Ghz in order to get the 9800 Pro. I think you'd be better off. 200Mhz doesn't make that much difference :)

The P4P800 is very good, stable, inexpensive, and also great for overclocking. I'm using it with a P4C 2.6ghz thats running happily and cool at 3.38ghz (barely hits 50 deg C when running FS9, using stock HS and fan). I would recommend a 256MB display card though. It gives a not huge but worthwhile performance boost to FS9 and will become a lot more important with upcomming games. Don't know what a 9800 / 256mb costs now but prices are falling and should go down a lot in comming months.Davidedit: Forgot to mention P4P800 supports SATA and RAID. A pair of fast SATA drives on RAID 0 would Scream. Unfortunately I can't afford that yet.

Id try to save money by not getting the audigy, sblive would be fine, or go for a motherboard with good onboard sound.You can then spend the extra money one a faster video card like a 9800pro 256mb.If you still dont have enough money for that video card I would even suggest running 512mb of ram. You will get more performance out of that video card swap then you would with 512mb more ram.I have a gig of ram and i dont use even close to all of it when playing flightsim. I find it to be overkill.Ill give u the specs on my system. It cost me 2000$ canadian to buildAsus a7n8x delux rev 2, onboard sound, 2 network, sataAthlon 2500+ Overclocked to 3200+1024mb Corsair Twinx PC3200 DRATI Radeon 9800xt120gig Western Digital 7200rpm SATA 8mb cacheAntec Sonata with 380w psuLiteon 52x CD-RI priced it out a week or two ago its about 1800-1900 for all that nowGoing with amd you will be able to build a system for alot less. If you are stuck on getting a pentium you might have to sacrifice other parts to get a faster video card. If i was to build a pentium 4 system it would have been atleast 500$ more for a 3.2 p4

"Id try to save money by not getting the audigy, sblive would be fine, or go for a motherboard with good onboard sound."Slimdaddy; hate to disagree. SBLive cards can be nothing but trouble with the newer systems. He should stay with the audigy. I agree the 9800Pro128 card is the best buy for the buck today.

128MB for a Videocard is more than enough.I agree on the Audigy, go for that. With some nice speakers you WILL notice the difference.

"Id try to save money by not getting the audigy, sblive would be fine, or go for a motherboard with good onboard sound."I agree. I've read Guru3d's reviews on the audigy and I've heard that it has some troubles too. SB Live! Platinum is the card I use and it is quite good. It's good for games and DVD movies. I also use it to run music for my R/C club's annual airshow, no problems there.I'm not sure on a price difference but I'd switch that Combo CDRW/DVD to separate CDRW and DVD drives. That way you can copy CDs, run two CDs at once, or take advantage of UDF technology without hogging the DVD.