And not forgetting that complexity and driver related bugs grows fast when you go more than two cards in SLI or Crossfire.
Really not worth it .
We probably will be able to play with everything maxed out in 3-5 years like someone here posted before.

Here's a crazy idea! Why not just wait until the full game is released and try it with your current hardware? Yes, I know it sounds crazy but what's the point of upgrading before you even have the game? I thought I had pre-release jitters, geeez...

I agree....simply because the game was running well on an i5 with gtx-460 (albeit with 2 gb ram) at (apparently) high settings....well, who's to say it won't run well on a less-powerful set-up with moderate settings? (which may still look awesome?)
unless of course you wish to make the best of any upcoming sales. If so, future-proof as much possible (if possible) ;)

"Sandy Bridge represents the largest increase in computing performance in our history"

wow .. you do not normally see Intel saying things like that

Pick whatever is state of the art in Q1 2012. That way you'll be sure to be able to handle "Battle over Moscow" as well.

(typical single missions in Il-2:FB required a rig which was a little over two times faster than the original Il-2 system requirements - if the engine upgrades don't push up the resource needs, then the mission builders will).

That said I could do with advice regarding the fastest RAM currently available and other performance configurations. I don't keep track of these things anymore.

Currently that would be something like triple channel 2133mhz DDR3 installed in banks of 3.

Latencies are less relevant these days ... the 2133 ram is often CAS 9 or so. The clock is so fast the latency becomes less relevant.

But you need a 1366 motherboard for triple channel.

Not sure if Sandy bridge will change that. Possibly SB will be all triple channel, no idea.

As the thread originator, Thanks to all the thread participants thus far. Very informative, both technically and philosophically (Upgrade philosophy).

[As an aside, to shed some light on my personal perspective, I'm on the far side of 67. So, when I do an upgrade, there is always the possibility that the upgrade will be my Last...if you get my drift. Sooo, postponing some aspect of upgrading in anticipation of a forthcoming Advance in 6-12 months might well mean that I'll never get to see/experience the Maximum thrill which current cutting edge state-of-the art might allow]

But, back to the the main thread subject matter, I wonder why Oleg/1C can't now provide some very specific information on minimum necessary and maximum usable/desirable specs. Surely by this point they know how their engine will, or will not, use multiple Core technology. Will dual core be a minimum for effective BOB performance, even if not 'required' ? Will quad-core be the 'main' approach??? Will Six-core, up to 12 thread be a total waste in Oleg's opinion? Will RAM of 6GB, let's say, be the max that Oleg can see being usable for BOB on release?

It just seems that by this point, with BOB Release seemingly likely within the next 4-6 months, Oleg and his team certainly must for some time have been using some Top-of-the-Line, Cutting Edge computers for development and now Beta testing...if only to see how far they can push their engine/performance...or could push it in the near future. This would seem the opposite end of development/testing from their effort to determine just how low they might go for "Minimum specs" statement on the release package.

I can see why early in development, or even a couple of years ago, they would have been reluctant to commit to any 'recommended' specs....but now...Why not?

[Again, as a personal aside, I will not upgrade until at least I have a BOB installation DVD in my hand. I can then read the manual, and the forums, for a week while my Rig is being upgraded. I'd just like to be prepared now, in advance, for making the upgrade component choices. Someone suggested waiting to try BOB on my current rig to see if I might be satisfied...and therefore discover that I might need NO significant upgrade. No way, Jose. I have a Core 2 dual core, 8800GTX/768Mb, 4Gb RAM with only Vista usable 3GB. Surprisingly it runs IL2 (and Rise of Flight) superbly at moderate, though acceptable graphics settings and intensity...for a 3 1/2 year old Rig. At that time it was absolutely cutting edge, and expensive...but I've gotten more than my money's worth. However, now there is No possibility of it running SOW:BofB to my satisfaction.]

Thanks for listening... :)

Doolittle, I have seen my future and it is you :). 67 and still gaming, good on you!

Splitter

As far as I know Oleg does not have top end hardware in his office and the game is not fully assembled yet. Thus, system reqs are not known.

The only 2 things his devs mentioned are
- 4 cores will be better than 2 as they will have physics, graphics and sound data handled by different cores (and the 4th one left for system, and other overhead). Personally I doubt that 2 extra cores of 6core proc can be fully loaded before next engine revision.

- 3Gb ram will be minimum requirement.

I think your current rig will run BoB on low settings at least in QMB.

Thanks!

It is worth remembering, though that Il-2's system requirements climbed by about 30% during the beta stage.

I remember as I had a 350mhz machine that could no longer run it. It is also a good idea to recognise that Oleg's sims run on incredibly slow machines, but require a lot of resources to 'run well'.