PC Rebuild

[PMK]

I have a PC I built for my son, that is no longer in use. It's still a working machine and I figured I could do a few upgrades and install FSX on it. (My old FS9 machine bit the dust)

System info is
Motherboard- Gigabyte Tech Model GA-MA770-DS3
CPU- AMD ANTHOLON 64X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+
RAM 2GB Mfg-GSkill 52-6400CL5S-1GBNQ timing 5-5-5-15
Display- Nvidia Geforce 8600GT 512Mbyte
Operating XP Home edition

I was thinking of a Video card upgrade along with a possible Ram upgrade. I want to stay with Nvidia and was wondering what is recommended for the Nvidia card for FSX today. As far as the RAM goes, I am not sure what to do there. Any help would be appreciated

PK

[PMK]

Ok no responses, on that was hoping for some input but I am now looking at this card as it is in my price range
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130660
Checked the case and I have 4 GB of ram so with XP I think I am maxed out, maybe find a faster ram set but I get lost with RAM specs. Any help on that would be appreciated
My thoughts were this would be a dedicated FS machine but figure I will add a second drive just for FS, with all addons that can be had, how big would you recomend?

Stupid question now is if I went to Win 7 can I increase amount of Ram that way and would it help with performance

[Slotback]

Sorry I never knew this thread existed.

Before you start looking at cards, can you find out the model number of the power supply (PSU) and the wattage of the power supply. You can find this out by looking at the side of the PSU.

Your PC is always only as fast as the slowest part (bottleneck). A GTX 460 768mb, GTX 460 SE 768 or GTS 550 would probably suit it well, anything faster and you probably want to get a faster CPU to eliminate bottlenecks.


32 bit Windows XP is limited to around 3-3.5gb of RAM. You need 64 bit Windows to get around this. Honestly I wouldn't bother unless you can get 64 bit Windows 7 for free (MSDNAA or something).

[PMK]

Thanks for the quick response
The power supply is a Mushkin 580 watt

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

I didnt think of that, hopefully it will handle the diff in vid card. Thanks for the advice on vid cards will take look at Newegg and see what I can find.

[Slotback]

That PSU is fine and should run any of the graphics cards I suggested.