cost for a new system

Its all speculation at the moment
Wait untill the specs come out for Vista and fsx and whatever MS say you need,Double it

If you are thinking of a good system for games then you should be looking at
Duel core CPU
Duel PCIe GFX cards
As much ram as you can afford

There are ways to go about it slowly by upgrading now,and then again later if you have a good AGP GFX card now
Buy a Duel CPU and mobo with both an AGP slot and a PCIe GFX slot,then when the price of PCI GFX cards starts falling buy a good one
Then buy a new mobo with two PCIe GFX slots(these will have fallen in price too)
There are only a couple of the twin mobos at the moment at about £50

FSX's arrival will be an excellent excuse for a computer upgrade for myself. I'm waiting for the 512 video cards to become standard (they're available currently state-side from Dell and Alienware, but they are certainly still a pretty penny.) It's also worth waiting for Vista to show up, becasue you definitly don't want to get the last (and probably unsupported) generation of windows XP!

originalgrunge wrote:

It's also worth waiting for Vista to show up, becasue you definitly don't want to get the last (and probably unsupported) generation of windows XP!

Why would the last generation of XP be less supported than a previous one?

Enlighten me, kind Sir, I just want to learn 😀

Well, in the past Microsoft's policy with operating systems seemed to be that as soon as they make a switch to the next generation, their support died off for any currently existing ones rapidly. When windows ME came out, they felt it was a huge step up from '98 that very little attention to patches or updates were offered. Once XP was out, the extremelly flawed ME was completely abandoned by microsoft (I know that one from experience, as I have a separate computer that is still chugging away with ME). Just a personal bias I suppose 😉 .

Okay, I see where you're coming from now.
I was fully aware when the support for '95 and '98 stopped, it was well documented. Regarding ME though, I never heard a peep and I guess only those who're burdened with it became aware of any deadline.

You live and learn

The technical dead of a product is a very common method which been used from many brands not only for softwares but for a thousand of products.When a product hits the market its already sceduled when it will stops and when the next one will follow.All the products has a specific cyrcle of life.

The basic reasons which a brand decides to techical kill his products are two.
First and obvious ,because he wants to sell his new one,secondly the technical support cost of the old one.

The marketing targets of the big industries are planning on the minimum time depth of 6 months and, depending of the kind of the product, this depth can reache the next 2-3 years and maybe more.
When a product published most of brands designs the next generation of it.

The methods of marketing are great and very interesting from sociological side.
A simple and clear example is all of us.
Look how many posts and questions and rumors and problems and and and...we all suddenly have in our minds since MS...bombard...us with the release of VISTA and FSX.
The fact that all of us discussing and wondering and thinking if our systems responding to new specs, if it will be in a CD or DVD...,if we need Graphics cards...,new CPUs...,huge Rams...,if our pockets are deep enough 😉 etc, was the target of MS and hardware brands.

And they hit center. ❗

If i have to suggest something it will be to be patient,not hurry up for upgrades cause of VISTA or FSX (unless if we have already plant it)and wait this products come to market.
After about 3-4 moths of using we will know more than enough in order to decide what we have to do and what not.
😉

If people are looking to perhaps buy a new system then have a look here.

http://www.meshcomputers.com

Relative to Dell and other retailers, for the money you pay i feel you get a hell of alot more power for you money. I custom build a machine on the mesh site and was surprised how cheap it was for the spec of the system.

Once Vista hits the shelves,expect MS to offer support for XP for about 12 months only
They are in the business of making money,and getting us all to get Vista is just a part of the MS plan

atreyu wrote:

how much money do you guys think it would cost to get a nice system with vista for fsx? also do you think 512mb gfx cards with be out then or not? and id rather build the computer myself.

Personally I would wait till much nearer the time. Dual core processors are definitely the way to go, but dual graphics cards have been a mixed story. I have nvidia's dual card option - SLI on my board and I have decided not to use the second slot (I have a single 6800GT in it at the moment). This is for several reasons:

A) dual graphics only benefits games at high resolutions -ie above 1280x1024. This is the max resolution my 19inch TFT is capable of so I would only see a small performance gain if I opted for SLI - not worth forking out for a second card

B) SLI was meant to offer a decent upgrade path - buy one card now, get a second later when they are cheap - saving the cost of having to buy a newer more expensive card. - This hasn't worked because they discontinued making my 6800GT a few weeks ago, and also the prices just didn't fall enough for it to be good value.

The only reason you should opt for SLI is if you are gaming at high resolutions like 1600x1200 which SLI benefits, or you want to spend a fortune on two of the latest cards to have the fastest system around.

It still makes much more sense to get the best card now, then when it no longer keeps up in games, sell it and put the money towards the latest one. This is still the best value method of keeping up with the latest games. Nvidia are bringing out their 7900 soon to match ATI's x1900. However these will probably not be the last cards to be released before Vista. The next cards and indeed the next gen games, usually get released each October.

RAM wise, 1GB is a minimum for decent gaming now. I have 2GB but the only game I've found that uses over 1GB is Battlefield 2 that often uses 1.5GB of my ram.

Anonymous wrote:

atreyu wrote:

how much money do you guys think it would cost to get a nice system with vista for fsx? also do you think 512mb gfx cards with be out then or not? and id rather build the computer myself.

Personally I would wait till much nearer the time. Dual core processors are definitely the way to go, but dual graphics cards have been a mixed story. I have nvidia's dual card option - SLI on my board and I have decided not to use the second slot (I have a single 6800GT in it at the moment). This is for several reasons:

A) dual graphics only benefits games at high resolutions -ie above 1280x1024. This is the max resolution my 19inch TFT is capable of so I would only see a small performance gain if I opted for SLI - not worth forking out for a second card

B) SLI was meant to offer a decent upgrade path - buy one card now, get a second later when they are cheap - saving the cost of having to buy a newer more expensive card. - This hasn't worked because they discontinued making my 6800GT a few weeks ago, and also the prices just didn't fall enough for it to be good value.

The only reason you should opt for SLI is if you are gaming at high resolutions like 1600x1200 which SLI benefits, or you want to spend a fortune on two of the latest cards to have the fastest system around.

It still makes much more sense to get the best card now, then when it no longer keeps up in games, sell it and put the money towards the latest one. This is still the best value method of keeping up with the latest games. Nvidia are bringing out their 7900 soon to match ATI's x1900. However these will probably not be the last cards to be released before Vista. The next cards and indeed the next gen games, usually get released each October.

RAM wise, 1GB is a minimum for decent gaming now. I have 2GB but the only game I've found that uses over 1GB is Battlefield 2 that often uses 1.5GB of my ram.

Thank you Guest for your very sensible contribution and for summing up a confused current situation.

I too opted for a SLI-board (ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe) when I built my current rig several months ago with the same reasoning: Buy the identical card again as an upgrade when prices come down.
Nice theory --- yes, so far that's all it is and probably remains.

I made an acquaintance shortly after I'd already received most of the parts for my new system. The person I met was of the opinion I shouldn't burden my mind with upgrading too much considering the rapid advances being made in computer technology and the resulting drop in price of components.
He suggested I should get the best microprocessor and graphics-card I could afford at the time of buying/building a new computer and instead of spending money on several upgrades over a two- or three-year period, keep the money and start from scratch when the time is right.

After having had plenty of time to weigh up this, at the time seemingly insane advice, I now wholeheartedly concur with it.