Greetings all!

My present machine (Abit NF7/Athlon 2600/ATI9600/XP) is dying from some hardware disease or the other, and it is time for an upgrade. I can run fs9 with lowish/mid settings quite well in my area of interest (stick and rudder mainly in a Realair SF260: no heavies and not really interested in simulating large airports).

I can't decide whether to upgrade to FSX and spec the hardware with that in mind, or to go for a (presumably) cheaper system that would make FS9 really sing.  I am keen to try a triple head to go with whichever I choose.  

I have had a look on the old threads, but it is quite hard to come up with a search strategy that answers the question: does FSX have anything significant over FS2004 to offer me?  My impression is 'not much' but please convince me otherwise.

The other issue is minimising the cost over the the next 5 years or so: low spec now, high spec in a couple of years or high spec now and no upgrade for 5-6 years.  The only things I can see on the horizon are Battle of Britain: Storm of war and FS11 which I suppose will be unplayable on affordable hardware for at least 5 years.

Sorry about the rambling preamble: here is the specific question. I have been offered a system built around

ASUS P5Q
Intel Q9300 2.65
OCZ 4GB kit DDr2 800MHz PC6400 5-4-4-15
Zotec GTX260
Samsung 500G SATAII

for around 1000UKP (no peripherals)

Browsing this forum suggests that a 8800 GPU would be better value.
I believe that the th2g works best with nvidia so I want to stick to that.

How 'future proof' does this look, and if I went for something FS9 orientated would it be half the price, and, if so,what motherboard/processor/GPU should I be thinking of.

Many thanks,

Mike

MOUSY wrote on Nov 10^th, 2008 at 7:08pm:


Yes, we really get screwed on the prices here, despite the fact that we both get the stuff from China!

I decided to go for a low/mid system and focus of FS9, and perhaps have a little dabble with FSX along the way just to get used to it.  I'm recycling some stuff from my old system, which has a thermaltake 480W PSU, so I may be a bit short on power. 

The idea is that I keep some flexibilty on upgrading in a year or two when I can see what the lie of the land looks like with SOW:BOB and FSX11.

I have already sourced

E4500 CPU
8800GT 500  GPU
Asus P5QL-E (P43)
WD 500G SATA drive

Now I need some memory.  I find the whole memory specification and timing numbers thing very confusing.  Should I go with the OCZ 4G kit PC6400 5-4-4-15 that I was originally offered?  Is there any milage now or in the future in going for PC8500?

Mike

Ummmm is you want a com that would run FS9 high and FSX desnt them get something like i'm getting... Very good for upgrades.

But with the downfall of USAs economy Prices here is Aussieland have gone up soooo much

Back to the original question...


FSX is better than FS9 in too many ways to list.. ESPECIALLY if you're a stick-n-rudder, small GA simmer.

If you're able to keep yourself from getting caught up in the psychological quagmire (stewing because you can't push the sliders all the way to max), a very modest upgrade will give you a FSX experience that is much better than a "maxed out" FS9.

For reference.. I run a Q6600 (o-clocked to 3.2ghz), 4GB of 1066RAM, and a 8800GTS-G2-512, and am having a blast with FSX. THat computer is a year old and can probably be built today for UNDER $1000US  (I spent nearly $2,500).

Forget about FS9.. build as much computer as you can afford and just settle for how it runs FSX. You wont regret it.