I think we are done here guys unless somebody wants to keep things alive once we see a motherboard with 3 or even 4 full 16x version 2.0 PCI-e slots that are all 16x electrically. In the meantime based on everyone's great comments I will soon buy the Q6600 (or Q6700 if I can swing it), a 780i motherboard, and will upgrade my GPU's to three 8800 video cards (or again even higher ...paycheck depending!) So in essence this thread for me personally is wrapped up for the summer. .. Time to fly!
As a final note I will be posting some YouTube videos most likely in September entitled SimSamurai Flight Simulator to show off my 2-seat sim station with some difficult mountain approaches in heavy weather. Hopefully by then I will also have the dual yokes and throttle quadrant working. I am also going to be selling licensed copies of blueprints for $25.00 if anyone wants to build their own station! I have 12 full size 24x32 prints, over 300 assembly photos, and a 40 page how to build A-Z manual. The material costs are less than $400 and the station doubles as a home-desk / media center. It has built-in shelves on the side for CD's, books, games, maps, etc...In other words you can put it in you living room without it looking like an airplane stuffed in your house. (wife approved!)
I have also created a multi-colored, multi-format, spreadsheet product called the GLOBETREKKER 1000 TM. This is an extremely comprehensive flight adventure containing 12 chapters with over 1,000 if the worlds most difficult airports organized into point to point hops that will have you traverse the entire globe over several different world tours. It includes all airport data and has a built it time/speed/distance calculator. A buddy and I are on World Tour 1 (165 legs) and are now in lower South America in the Andes. We began flying this tour in north Alaska last year.
I spent 2 years hunting only the best of the best most challenging airports the sim has to offer as well cross referenced them with all of the real worlds most difficult AND included all stock glitches, bowls, crevasses, anomolies, etc.. It took me a LONG, LONG, LONG time to hand pick and then string them together in an orderly fashion. It is 90% VFR tours but one chapter is dedicated to IFR and many of the VFR trips you take will have many IFR capable airstrips. I can only say that since starting out with the GLOBETREKKER 1000 it has
BY FAR been the most fun, enjoyable, and certainly the most challenging sim flying I've ever had. The cost here is only $15 which is quite reasonable considering how much fun it is! I will also offer $35 for both the station blueprints, manuals, and the GT-1000 !!
If anyone is interested in this stuff or wants to see some SimSamurai flight deck photos drop an email to :
CaptanNemo@earthlink.net
Other than that people...have a great summer....and keep the greasy side down!