Great advice above. I’ll add that with GPU shortages the pre-built route is a good way to get one at a sort-of close to msrp price. But, know that even pre-built companies have trouble getting GPUs so some of them have put mark ups on GPU prices. I ended up buying an Alienware as they have not added a mark up and the wait time was not terrible (still a month though). There are trade offs as some prebuilt from a Dell, or HP as examples will use low or mid grade components that are proprietary to help them keep costs down. So, while I love my Alienware desktop for the cpu/GPU and overall performance, the case is a bit small so it runs warm and doesn’t have much room for upgrades. The PSU and motherboard are proprietary and not re-useable in a larger case if I wanted to move the cpu, GPU and memory to a bigger case with more cooling. Having said that, I have a full warranty and likely easier path if something fails in the first year or two as opposed to if I had built from scratch by buying parts from various places. I would buy it over again in the same situation of mass shortages on lots of parts…and that’s predicted to continue. As for choice of GPU and cpu, get the most you can knowing how hard this sim is on PCs, especially in VR. A 2080ti, 3070 or 3080 GPU would be a really good choice and the fastest processor you can get. Rtx 3090s are fantastic but are crazy expensive even at msrp. Ping back if you need more help, many here have built or bought machines in the last year or so from what I can tell … and many just for this sim so a lot of experiences learned on the hardware choices. VR is a terrific experience in this sim, even with it not being optimized and being new still. Have a look too at YouTube videos for VR specifically in MSFS, there are a few prolific video makers so you can see the experiences on a few types of hardware.
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