Simviation Forums

AMD 3500 Venice 939
ABIT KN8 SLI Nvidia Socket 939 Motherboard
GeForce 7600GS 512mb
Antec Smart Power 450watt power suply
1GB Corsair Ram (Option to upgrade to 4GB)
Antec SLK3000B Case

Will this be able to run Vista and Possibly FSX with good Frame Rates?

[glb]The Current Cost is $719.17. Good Deal?[/glb]

Vista is going to be a ram whore, beta versions are using about 800mb of ram without any aplications open, so if you plan on running vista you will want at least 2gb.

Although with todays games you may get lower performance for the same price with a duel core chip, in the future windows vista and games will be able to take full advantage of duel core chips and they will offer alot more perforamance than they currently do in games.  So for the future I would advise you to go with a duel core chip. (fsx will suport multiple threads)

Are you actualy going to get sli? if not then save a few $ and get a non sli board (you can always get one later if a mad urge overcomes you).

The graphics card will romp through fs2004 but I doubt it will have so much luck with FSx.  A 7800gt or 7900gt would be a better choice for the future.  The 7600 series is kindof crippled by its 128bit memory bus.  As fsx will be using much higher detial textures than fs2004 512mb of texture memory is a must rearly.  You may also want to consider getting a slower card now (like a 6600gt) and upgrading when fsx comes out as non of the current cards support directx10 and fsx will offer a number of performance and visual quality improvenments for directx10 cards.

you don't seem to have thought about your hard disks in there  ;)
running two in hard drives in raid1 would keep your data safe if one drive failed.  

AMD 3500 Venice 939 - Stretch to a 3700+ San Diego if you can be sure it is an E4 stepping otherwise don't bother. A 3200+ is essentially the same as a 3500+ but cheaper and it will normally clock well beyond 3500+ speeds.

ABIT KN8 SLI Nvidia Socket 939 Motherboard - this motherboard has a complex overclocking BIOS, quite confusing for the novice but desirable for the experienced overclocker.

GeForce 7600GS 512mb - The GS series are crippled versions of the series, 512mb is more than standard ram amount on that card and I would be immediately supicious, you didn't name the brand so I can't check on it. More ram is often a BAD thing on crippled cards, they stuff lots of inferior ram on the card to flog it to the unwary. A "normal" 7800GS is slightly better than a 6600GT.