Min. spending on upgrades needed to run FSX well

[Saitek]

My Dad has offered me the computer (see sig) we built a few years ago (some of you may remember that) and I believe the power supply in it would be powerful for any modern rig as it was a powerful one at the time. I presume the case we bought then would be just as good now too. Unfortunately I don't have the details here to provide. (Dad lives 100 odd miles away:P).

I need a motherboard, video card, RAM and processor. I would rather wait until prices come down or until the hardware will match the software if necessary. I would have a budget of

[MWISimmer]

If you want to enjoy DX10 and acceleration, then factor in the cost of Vista OS too..  :P  

[Saitek]

Right, but that is something I could buy at a later date for improved running.

Anyone out there with rigs that give them good performances and that could point me in the right direction?

[ozzy72]

Ben make a well known sentence using the following words "bank a go rob"

[Saitek]

There has got to folks out here that have a good machine that run FS and I just want to know who they are. Where are the hardware gurus hiding?

[jimcooper1]

No one's hiding anything!  You're just not going to cut it with

[Saitek]

[quote]
You're looking at a P35 or 680i motherboard,  a Q6700 or better,  2GB 1066MHz RAM and a 8800 Graphics card.   Price those up and you're into

[jimcooper1]

Saitek,

For the performance you're looking for this is the minimum I'd recommend:
OVERCLOCKERS:

EVGA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Superclocked GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (512-P2-E802-AR)

[Saitek]

I appreciate your time. On overclockers forums they said that spending that much would not render much better performance than this set up (their recommendations) and wasn't worth the money. I'll wait for now until at least Xmas. Too busy to play FS right now anyway.

[legoalex2000]

well my 2 cents. make sure that heatsink is copper, copper/magnesium, or full magnesium. heat troubles with aluminum. good choice with Zalman though, i have the 100% copper of that style, with OCZ 99.9% Silverite Thermal Paste (i recommend this too)

and for good reason i caught this, cause according to your picture, your buying the AMD version (even though its all-in-one, find the Intel style just to be safe)

and as for ram, look for sticks with heatsinks on them, and a CAS of 3, because 2 and 2.5, we just aren't there yet.

Ramos

[Saitek]

Hi Ramos, not buying right now. Just looking and comparing at what I can get; or rather what I need to run FSX properly. Thanks for the tips.