It's time to upgrade my custom PC! Need expert advice!

[King$nake]

Sup everyone. First and foremost, this forum is awesome! You guys helped me build my current PC, and it has been great ever since.

I got a few extra $$$ right now, and would like to upgrade my PC. I want to be up-to-date, but more importantly I want to be able to run the latest games flawlessly - specifically, Flight Simulator X.

I originally built this PC for Flight Simulator X right when it was coming out. I thought I had a bad system but FSX ran horribly on this PC! I tried FSX SP2 and that didn't really help. I un-installed it and haven't touch it since.

Anyways, I am ready to upgrade, and hopefully I can get the parts that will make FSX run like a dream on hi-res and hi graphics.

What I am thinking about upgrading is:

CPU (Quad-Core)
GPU (I don't know what the best is right now)

I was thinking about upgrading my ram, but I have no intentions of switching to Vista yet, and if I add more ram, Windows won't recongize over 2 gig, correct?

Any help would be great!

Current setup is in Sig! BTW, I have been running 3.2GHZ stable ever since I OC'd over a year and a half ago! Not a single problem

Thanks
Joe

 

[NightSurge]

Well, lets see. First off, your system should have run Flight Simulator X with no problem! It is not that demanding of a game. I do not know why it would not work.

As for as upgrades, I would recommend a Q6600, as almost everyone loves these and even in my personal use this processor worked wonders. Then I would upgrade your power supply to maybe a PC Power and Cooling 610 or a Corsair 650TX. Finally, I would upgrade the video card to either a 9800GTX or HD4850 as they are about the same price/performance. Your video card may have been the issue before as the 640mb versions never performed as well as the newer G92 512mb version, but I don't see how that would hamper your Flight Simulator X.

 

[pilotguy121a]

you need more ram, FSX is a hog when it comes to it. You should download resized tree textures as those will help you get a few more FPS. Also try to lower the settings of weather or fly without it, clear skies. Don't use car traffic or things like that those do the most FPS damage. There are many performance downloads available on avsim and other sites download those and you should get better FPS. Also get a RAM defragger so you can have the most RAM possible before you fire it up. I am also building a system for FSX very similar to yours and using the Q6600.
Good luck

 

[Grinchy]

Q6600, 650w corsair, hd4850

 

[King$nake]

Wouldn't it be pointless to go with 4x Gig of Ram if I am just running Windows XP?

If I upgrade my Processor to Q6600, Ram to 4x and Video card to 9800GTX, will there be a dramatic difference in my PC?

 

[veg1992]

Nope, if you have 64bit you can see all 4gb's of RAM

Um yes.. especially in games and multitasking

 

[Tenenbaum]

Edit : Nevermind


Why do people choose 64bit Vista over 64Bit XP?

 

[Redmo0n]

The 8800gts is fine. Why not just keep that and get a psu+ram+cpu.


Edit: Unless you want to sell your 8800gts to me . Do you happen to live in Australia?