The big thing here JCD is a budget. If you can at least give us a target budget we can give you some options for the best rig for that price range that will play most games okay. If we don't have a budget then we are just floundering around trying to make good suggestions. What would be a good cpu/mobo combination for a $500 rig is often not the best bang for your buck for a $750 rig and so on and so forth.

So, a budget is kind of important if you can get your hands on one.

Lian Li PC-A6010 case [black]

Antec TruePower Quattro 1000w PSU

ASUS P6T-se  X58 i7 MoBo

Intel i7 920 2.66Ghz LGA1366 CPU

12G OCZ Triple [6x2G] PC12800 DDR3 Gold Ram

CoolerMaster V8 CPU Cooler

Vantec EZ2 Sata hot-swap racks [x2][black]

1TB Seagate Sata2 7200 HD [x2] [redundancy backup/data]

2TB Western Digital Caviar Green Sata2 HD [x2]

Shintaro Harddrive Docker.

500G WD Sata2 7200 HD [game backups]

250G Seagate Sata2 7200 HD [x2] [secondary/alternate OS installs in racks]

60G OCZ Summit SSD [for OS]

ACR-105 Multi card reader

LG Sata DVD-RW [x2][black]

ASUS GTX590 3GB GPU

Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit RTM.

FSX is 'famous' for there being squillions of sites/suggestions/methods of getting more 'speed' out of it.....but it's the sort of beast that uses everything you throw at it and still wants more....;p

Yes, I've mentioned that twice already....;p

I take that back i dont see a bottleneck there, if the game is really that greedy i will test it this weekend...demo should be ok i guess

No...the demo has limited 'scenery' via islands only...you're not actually mapping half the globe at the same time as flying a plane.

Apparently if you fly high enough you can pinpoint your location by the STARS!!! as they are correctly mapped too....;p

As to games running "slowly" - any running application can create bottlenecks that may or may not concern a single particular component.

For example, when running Dwarf Frortress, Graphics card is completely irrelevant, CPU is what matters, but because the game is not threaded, you will want a CPU with faster clock frequency and fewer cores.

Arma 2, for example, has a huge texture pool and data is always streamed from memory to videocard memory, so the throughput of the videocard memory bus is important as well as size of video RAM, but the data can't fit into the VRAM anyway, you need a fast I/O too (SSD disk preferrably), or enough RAM for a RAMDISK.

These are just examples I use to point out that each application can have different demands you have to take into consideration when building a rig. People today tend to forget that CPU and GPU are sometimes not enough, with games having more and more graphical and sound data, disk and bus throughput maybe just as important.

Also, when buying a motherboard, look ahead and see what sockets it supports, what is a possible upgrade path for your CPUs to estimate motherboard longevity. I am for example stuck with 1156 chipset, so Core i5 750 is pretty much end of the line for me. If I want SandyBridge or IvyBridge, I have to toss out MOBO and CPU, which will be expensive. 

As was said here, there are a lot of parameters to consider, some chipsets or combinations of chipset and components have odd bugs and glitches you most often find only AFTER you have bought them. I had 8800GT with bad memory for some time and could not run Dominions 3 at all. Other games worked fine.

You guys keep asking for a budget, so lets say 600$.

So, this is MY system overview from SISoftware Sandra if anyone's interested. I excluded peripherals, printers, and network information.

Specs look like they are out of the stone-age......USB1....DDR1....256meg card....

You have to be able to do better than that for $600 ....;p

You don't want that JCD.  Not for $600.  It sounds like a 2005/2006 refurbished Compaq with Windows XP. That's a $150 used computer.

Here is a build on sale that will play today's games well.  It's more than $600 but.. you might find a build it yourself kit that is close for about $600.  Take a look here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227383

@JCD-Bionicman

1.  First of all, you have to answer the question which kind of games you're looking to play.  There is a rather large difference between games that are graphics-card reliant and those that are more reliant on processor etc.

2. If you're the type of gamer who is at all concerned about maximising FPS at a decent resolution in graphics-card centric games (ie. shooters etc.) you'll be hard-pressed to get that type of performance out of $600 system unless you turn almost all advanced graphics options to min.  Games these days tend not to be 'hardware optimised' very well and therefore often require HUGE hardware to even run at decent framerates.  (I have played each and every FPS game since the original DOOM and have purchased new hardware for each batch of new shooter games each year).  One can almost spend $600 on the video-card ALONE for a "modern gaming rig" designed for shooters.

3.  If the games you're mostly interested in are non-shooters (RTS etc.) you will still need a decent video card but can focus more heavily on CPU etc.  Again (in my opinion) $600 may buy you a decent [budget] gaming pc but will not allow for running things at max resolution with all graphics effects turned on etc.

I have been gaming since the early Lode Runner and Joust days and have been building my own systems for the latest games since before the first Rainbow Six game (the one made by Red Storm before UBI took over the franchise to kill it....); in other words I have been gaming and building my own rigs for many many years.   You do not sound like the type of person who should build themselves a PC (let alone a "modern gaming pc").  In order to do so you must have some decent hardware knowledge and certainly know more than to be under the assumption that "motherboard = monitor fps".  You need to shop for a decent pre-built gaming rig keeping my above points and your answers to same in mind.

You should head over to ncix or newegg (just two examples of many) and check out some of their pre-configured systems and then look up reviews for them.  If you are more of an FPS-gamer you'll need to search for video-card comparisons online and then look for a pre-build system that has that card in it.

The rest of the 'work' in finding a system for you now rests with you.  You need to anwswer for yourself which type of gamer you intend to be in order to buy the system best suited to your needs.

I still have that....managed to get it going half OK via dosbox... but TerraNova was so much better...as games go....;)

   seems like years ago I tried to get Terra Nova running in Dosbox but ended up having some terrible sound issues.  One of these days I should try again.....man those good old games....when games were still made by hobbyists for hobbyists!   Remember Rescue Raiders?   Played that one to death on my old Apple II.

I've had Terra Nova running.... I sort of keep an old 'system' hanging around as well.... running Win98 se and play silly old stuff...Wolfenstein 3D .... Heretic....etc...;)

Correction: That is not a computer I am looking to buy, thats the computer I have.

Ah....that's OK, then.

It's a little 'old', going by the specs....and it 'shouldn't be difficult at all to improve on that with $600....;)

So, is anything salvageable? Meaning the case and other?

Cases for a prebuilt like a Compaq would be pretty tough to rebuild in.  I'd think even a cheap case (perhaps even free with a psu) would do as well with a lot less pain.

The only things I'd consider pulling out are the optical (DVD) drive and your Sata 1 HDD.  Sata is back compatible, so even if you get a SATA2 or 3 mobo, it'll be able to use it.  I'd probably still get a new one of each; the DVD to match color (and is cheap) the HDD to be newer/faster and less likely to die . .but just depends on how budgeting goes.  You might be able to pull off a case fan or something if you were in dire need of another one, but I don't think you would be. 

The PSU is likely too weak (and old) to be trustworthy with new parts, may not even have the necessary connectors, and the CPU/ MOBO/ RAM etc are just too old and won't work with newer parts.  Sadly you'll also need a new copy of windows as the copy for your old Compaq is only for that Compaq, and can't be transferred . .and you'd need to upgrade to get DX10/11 for gaming anyways.

One bit of advice: if you're new to piecing together computers, be careful about mixing and matching parts from different people's posts.  Some things will work out fine, but getting a CPU suggested by one person and a MOBO from another, things may turn out badly.  Just double check everything before you buy.

I'll try to toss in a few thoughts a bit later when I can look things up . .but ya, I'm sure for your budget you can get something a lot nicer than what you have now, and hopefully you can have some fun putting it together.

In a word...no.

Keep the whole system as a backup...or something you can hand down to a sibling.

Even the DVD/CD drive isn't worth removing....they are built to a price...and the price is LOW....and moving parts means their life is VERY finite.

Expect seriously to dump the lot.

http://pastebin.com/y8Ffbwaw

easier lol. the post was just way too long

roflmafaoo ....yes, but Price?

I could list my specs too....but it'll be over $4000 ...;)

sorry for the lengthy post, I paid £540. Not a bad machine plays pretty much any game i throw at it. Although I've had this graphics card for a while now since christmas 2010 I will be upgrading as soon as I have the finances to do so. I posted an indepth report of the machine to give a rough idea of what works well

540 quid .....these days with the USD next to crap....that'd be somewhere around 1000  [even the Aussie dollar is in better shape]...;)

JCD's budget is around 600 [US] ....;)

The currency rates reflect the cost of living. He/She could still get a pretty good setup for $600.

Depends a lot on how often you use them, and the motor giving out isn't generally going to cause any other harm, so it's a fair place to shave off $30 if it's SATA. It's not a big deal to replace it later if need be.