Hi all. Long time FS fan but have been away from the scene for some time. Looking to get back into flying (virtually) as the real deal is just too far out of my price range at this point. I wanted to get some advice from those more experienced than me as to a) if I need to upgrade my current system to get FSX playable with reasonable settings and addons (REX, ORBX scen, additional payware planes) and if so how best can I do that keeping in a reasonable budget $500-$750. My specs are listed below. Any comments or suggestions would be most welcome.CPU: Intel i5 760 @ 2.8GHzMobo: ASUS P7P55LXMemory: DDR3 8MB DRAM 669MHzGPU: Raedon HD 6870 1MBOS: Windows 7 x64 ProfessionalThanks in advance for any and all suggestions

My best suggestion is, if you want a good system for FSX, wait until you have the budget for a good system, or build nothing. I've had a new system twice in the past, and after a while you'll end up regretting it, because FSX will not run as smooth as you expected. These are my suggested minimum specs, if you want to run FSX very very well:i5 2500K (same as i7 2600K, zero FPS difference, i7 2700K might overclock better) 180 euros8GB DDR3 1600 CL9 (best is 2133 CL9 for less hitching/microstuttering, although it won't increase framerate) : 40 eurosNVIDIA GTX 560Ti (performs EXACTLY the same as the GTX 580, I've had both believe, if you have the money wait for a GTX 660Ti or better) 200 euros2 HDD's, with a minumum of 7200 RPM for the least stutters due to HDD access, SSD won't increase performance at all: 150 eurosMinimum of 600W power supply, Corsair is the best, but I have no problems at all with my OCZ 700W. 70 eurosCase: Antec cases, are VERY well ventilated, my (lended) EVGA GTX 580 from with stock cooler barely exceeds 70C) 100 eurosFor overclocking, a CPU cooler is very important. Scythe Mugen 3 great, only runs 5 degrees hotter than Cosair H series, 30 eurosUnder full load, my CPU runs at 65C, which is great.This makes a total of 720 euros, which is around 900$. If you want to run FSX well with all the add-ons you mentioned, this is as cheap as you're gonna get it. All these components are the best bang for the buck you can get.I highly recommend you build a similar Sandy Bridge system as this, or otherwise don't build anything, waste of money. 1155 CPU's run very very well with FSX, the performance difference with 1156 and 1366 is quite massive. Don't get an AMD/ATI graphics card. They have some driver problems with FSX, which can cause low fps in clouds and stutter more.It is also highly recommended that you overclock your CPU. FSX is around 75% CPU dependant. With an aftermarket cooler from Scythe or Corsair, 4.5 GHz+ should be easy as hell. Just make sure you watch some good i5 2500K overclocking guides before you attempt to do anything. If your voltages and temps are not too high, then it's pretty much impossible to damage your PC by overclocking. I recommend, for a long term overclock, put your VCore on 1.4V, and now see how far you can push the multiplier until it becomes unstable. My CPU will not overclock further than 4.7 GHz on 1.4V. However, yours might make it to 4.9 GHz.

Arjen-Thank you so much for the detailed and thorough reply. I will wait until I am able to afford the whole kit rather than doing it piecemeal.