YaPet

Hi, Mark,as I wrote in another topic, the best performance you can achieve if you will use following recommendations:1. an operating system and the FSX must be on the different physical hard disks2. for the OS - install two quick HDD into RAID0 and use only one quarter of the whole RAID; remaining RAID volume to leave unusable3. install the FSX, nothing else, on a fastest SSD; the SSD size is depended of your requirementsDon't use the SSD for any swap and temporary files. The basic consideration is that frequent write operations lead to dramatical degradation of the SSD common performance. The SSD gives the best results for linear read/write operations. The next suggestion, use the SSD with no JMicron controller. Tests on most hardware sites show that this controller has no good characteristics after long usage the SSD, in another word is more influent with performance degradation. The best choice is either Indilinx or Intel from.

Well, it seems suitable for the FS9. But for the FSX is not enough and you will have more stutters most time, I'm sure.

If you want to build fastest system for the FSX, let me give you some suggestions:1. operating system and the FSX must be on the different physical hard disks2. for OS - install two quick HDD into RAID0 and use only one quarter of the whole RAID; remaining RAID volume leave unusable3. install the FSX on a fastest SSD; I think the SSD size must be 64GB at least

If you are happy with your card, don't be in trouble. Cards from both vendors, ATI and Nvidia, can give the same performance in the MSFS, while these are tunned in certain manner. Here are more funs of both vendors and each one has own opinion about it. Actually, a video card is the one from main components of the rig, of course, but not most important for MSFS, where is most important combined and balanced performance of the whole system. Therefore someone has different FPS for the same video card of another man. IMHO, if you stay before a choice of a video card, do it in relation with price/performance, independetly of vendor.PS: there you can find some tests for video cards in the MSFS http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-48...w-31433-28.html and Nvidia seems best however. But I'm not sure, that the ATI card was appropriate tuned.

If you don't have much money, take your sight to the AMD platform. You can build a rig with rather similar system performance vs Intel. For example (I don't know any UK on-line shops, so whole price is from Newegg):1. CPU - AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE - $ 102.992. MB - Gigabyte GA-MA790X-UD4P - $ 109.993. Video - EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+ Superclocked - $ 139.994. Memory - G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) DF3-10666CL7D-4GBPI - $ 64.99As you can see, the set of main parts could be cheapest than $500. Of course, you also need to add a good power supply, HDD and so on. Anyway, it would be a good choice for price/performance, if you are straitened for money.PS: if you are lucky man, you will be able to transform your dual core CPU to the full quad one. :) You can expect this, but it's a lottery. There you can find the successful story to do this http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=6345