I also recommend the Sonata or Sonata II "silent" case from Antec. Combined
with the factory cooler on the E6600 and a passively cooled Gigabyte video
card, my system is damned near silent - even when rendering video.

Well, John, and everyone -- thanks for the great advice!

I met with the owner of our locally-owned computer shop (NeoComputers
-- see them he http://www.neocomputers.com) and explained to him
what I was trying to do.

I then went on to explain how we attract a nice crowd of aviation
enthusiasts every Tuesday night -- and a goodly share of them are
high-end computer users who would benefit by knowing about his
store(s).

I told him that I didn't feel "right" using Best Buy or Dell for such a
locally-oriented project. I then offered to put signs up in our
theater that say something along the lines of "The Kiwi -- Powered by
NeoComputers", in exchange for him building a "God Gaming System" for
me -- at his cost.

He loved the idea, and immediately agreed to do this. It should be
done by this time next week.

I, of course, then proceeded to lose my mind further, and authorized
him to upgrade the components until the cost was still at my "mentally
accepted" price of $1500.

This is all starting to feel waaaaay too much like REAL aviation...

;-)

For those who care, here are some of the specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo 2.40 GHZ LGA 775 E6600
ASUS P5 LGA 75 965 DDR2 2 MB
2 GB DDR2 PC5300 667 Memory
ASUS EN7900GTX 512MB DDR3 PCI-E (video card)
AGI 500 watt power supply
Sound Blaster Audigy card
....plus the usual floppy drive and CD/DVD burner. I stayed with a 160
GB hard drive, figuring that'll keep us happy for now. (This machine
will be used ONLY for flight simming...)

NeoComputers will set it up and tweak it to run at peak speed, and
covers it with a 3-year warranty. The Kiwi is REALLY going to fly
now...and you guys can come fly it anytime you'd like!

Thanks again!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"