This part of flightsimdreams.com hosts my configuration opinions and choices over the time regarding my FS configuration.

FS2004 is my current setup and most info is related to FS9.

A common question is what kind of system i need to run FS9 or FSX..Up to know and to my knowledge, my findings are:

CPU:

These applications are CPU intensive rather than GPU (graphics card) intensive. Especially FSX is very CPU hungry thats why the best option will be for now an i7 family processor. For FS9 a dual or better a quad core system would be nice. Although FS9 will not use your 4 cores it is always helpful if you assign the unused cores for your other FS related programs that run on the same PC (ActiveSky, Jeppesen, FSRealtime, Servinfo e.t.c.)

I currently run all the above in my system without a glitch.

Graphics card:

I DIDNT GET THE GTX 295 for FS. If i did i would thorow much of my money. simple becasue FS is NOT SLI aware and i think that FSX does not gain from an SLI setup. What i propose is shown in the FS config article where a combination of things should take place.

1) Choose your manufacturer between  Nvidia and ATI. A very helpfull site for me is http://www.guru3d.com/. There are a lot of sites for drivers e.t.c but i think that is a good source for all kinds of info. It is Also th ehome of RivaTuner a great alternative for nHancer for nvidia cards.

You wil lsee another FS when you give the Antialiasing and anisotropic control to these programs instead of FS. But you must not overdo it for your card or you will see your frames dissapear. I always use the moto: "If it looks good enough its flyable enough!!" . Everything in FS is NOT about frame rates only...it is about smoothness. You can have smooth FS with 18fps and you can have problematic stuttering FS with 40fps. This can be minimized with the FS9.CFG options.

Hard Disks:

I havent tried SSD disks yet so i rely on normal Hard disks. I presume that running FS on good SSD will give us great performance increase due to the fact that FS is a really FILE SYSTEM app...

Hope you nJoy!

Elias