I only use fs9 and 500 smackers is a big weight on an OAP.
In your opinion how far can I reduse this below, & still get a decent flt.sim. operation?           luke

Bundle:-
AMD Athlon 64 3500 Retail / Asus A8N-SLi nForce4 SLi / 1GB GeIL Value PC3200 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle (BU-048-OK)
AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3500BPBOX) (CP-119-AM)
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
Asus A8N-SLi nForce4 SLi (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-101-AS)
Price:  £279.85   (£328.82 Including VAT at 17.5%)

GfxCard:-
BFG GeForce PCX6600 GT OC 128MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (BFGR6600GTOCX) (GX-005-BG)
- 525MHz 3D GPU Core Clock Speed
- 1050MHz DDR3 Memory Clock Speed
- GeForce 6800 features at midrange prices!
- LIFETIME Manufacturer Warranty
- 24/7 Email Manufacturer Support
Price:  £158.57 Including VAT at 17.5%

HD:-
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 80GB 6Y080MO SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-017-MD   £35

Bundle MSI:-
AMD Athlon 64 3000 Retail / MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum / 1GB GeIL Value PC3200 Dual Channel Kit - Bundle (BU-046-OK)
AMD Athlon 64 3000+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3000BPBOX) (CP-117-AM)
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC3200 Value Dual Channel Kit CAS2.5 (GE1GB3200BHDC) (MY-005-GL)
MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum nForce4 Ultra (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-046-MS)

The Grfx must be the 6600gt I understand,

but can I reduce the price, without noticable degredation to fs9 by  say:-

1. a less pricey mobo ie.(MSI, ABIT, Gygabite etc), or
2. CPU down to 3000 or 3200, or
3. NON SLI,  or
4. just PCI-E?

thnx                    luke

Thanx Weather Man,

I do not exactly understand how it affects me, this SLI and 2 cards thing.

As an old person that the only greedy program I will ever use is FS9, do I really need 2 gfx cards for it ?

When is it likely they come up with onother FS9 new model, and will it then need 2 cards?

Opinions welcomed,                      luke

Thnx Congo,
which are the decent & enexpensive mobos, by name?
luke

Prices tend to be rather arbitrary, with retailers taking advantage of current trends and media hype.

Obviously, the latest and greatest is going to cost a bit more than yesterday's news. So this is our dilemma.
Normally I recommend buying into technology which is one step behind the latest release, but mainboard selection is the one exception I make to this rule, it needs to be the very best you can buy because  it forms the basis upon which the PC is planned, built and upgraded in the future.

Each manufacturer will often make more than one model within a chipset. There is usually a "Deluxe" type offering all options, and then there are cheaper, less saturated models. If you require or desire the features of the more expensive version, then you need to spend the little bit extra to get that mainboard. I just made this mistake myself, and tried to save $20 and only ripped myself off by getting a cheaper mainboard than I should have.

What I normally do is choose a supplier I am happy with, then research his range of products, and try to see what the best buy within his range is. If the supplier does not have the mainboard required, then I will request it from him or another supplier must be sought.

Choose an apparently decent mainboard that suits your requirements.

Google up reviews of that board and user comments in forums regarding the proposed board.

Go to the manufacturers website and see if you can read their user forums regarding the mainboard, this is where the customers will be laying their complaints, if any, and remember, a lot of users are inexperienced, so you have to often read between the lines.

This may seem like a lot of trouble, and it is, but it's the only way to ensure, or rather, increase your chances of a successful purchase.

I could name names, but your local suppliers prices may be vastly different to what I can buy here.

Find what you desire at the right price and post the full name of the mainboard here. I'll see if I can get more info on it. If it's cheaper by a large margin, I would look hard to find a fault, as there is probably a reason why it is cheap.

You will see variations on the chipsets installed, stick to the nf4 SLI or nf4 Ultra, unless you have good reason to get otherwise.

Your current mainboard is a cheap and nasty jetway with a via chipset. Had it been an nForce2 Ultra 400 chipset, you would probably be buying a cheap and powerful CPU now, rather than a whole system upgrade, that's the difference that a good chipset makes.

As for a cheaper CPU, sure, you could get a slower one, but CPU's are STILL relatively weak by comparison to other hardware we can buy. You can never get a fast enough CPU......... they all lack power.

I see that you are considering a bundle purchase. Please make sure that the components are not available cheaper when bought seperately, or that one component in the bundle is not suitable for you. Those bundles look well balanced though.

A "dual channel memory kit" is mostly overpriced and cheaper ram can be bought by ordering standard modules, or better yet, get 2 higher spec modules for the same price.

The BFG 6600GT is a "premium" overclocked model, and this is not required, particularly if there is a cheaper model available, any decent brand 6600GT will overclock beyond BFG's spec.

http://uk.bizrate.com/buy/products__cat_id--405,keyword--6600gt.html

You really are on the right track, just beware of these "bundles", as they may not be offering the value that they give the impression of.

Personally, I would rather have a larger hard disk that is less than 50% full, as it will perform faster than a full hard disk of a higher spec. I am using a 160gb drive now, and it is only just adequate for my system and data.

HDD access and speed related problems tend to evaporate once you have 1gb of ram installed.

Biggest difference between the 'Deluxe' and 'standard' for the A8N-SLI is that the deluxe version has the SLI connector plug-in board built in (BIOS) instead of having it as a separate PCB that you have to fiddle between the 3 PCI-e slots that live in that area of the motherboard.

SLI does have an advantage with the latest drivers: FSAA load is spread over the two cards. But with FS9 still being limited by disk IO when it comes to framerate (you should try a high-res mesh on 4x rate and then listen to the harddisk...) it will probably not have much effect.

Dual channel kit means that you have 2 strips that have a combined size being the advertised size. A8N-SLI takes 2x2 in dual channel mode (4 connectors)

In holland, that config does around 150 euros for the motherboard, 270 for the processor and another 250 euros for the memory (Corsair TwinX 1GB). That makes 670 euros with all stuff in retail type packaging, but i don't know the exchange rate from euros to pounds and yours probably comes as OEM which can chop off some 10-20 percent of the price.

As long as the textures are read from disk as bitmaps and there isnt much post processing going on after that the only thing that will benefit is having a huge IO speed on the system bus

If they go for real reflection and bump mapping with the next one, SLI will give a speed improvement.

If i were you, i'd keep the option open and buy a SLI capable board with just one card. The plans are that the coming generation of nVidia drivers will support SLI on different cards as long as the chipsets are the same (for example 2x 7800GT or 2x 7800GTX from different manufacturers and with different memory sizes)

I have no idea what those PCStats mean, but a glance at the blue slides Gigabyte bothe SLI & Non SLI appear longer than the MSI's.

& MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (NF4 Ultra 200/400) is always Red at the bottom. Surely NOT red= poor.

And by golly, Asus is not shown. Is it above comparison?

Any info  on DFI LANParty NF4 of OCUK?

Finally, you knowlageble folk,  from all those stats which is the best mobo for fs9             luke