I like your thinking Deputy. and they are the sort of purchases I would consider too.
Two systems that will game when pressed, but also are excellent work workhorses for earning $$$, and for a decent price too!
When I look at the systems I have running here, which I use for lab scenario purposes and testing, they are all capable of running IL2 (OK so the AMD Barton 3200+ doesn't do it quite as well as the FX60/AMD64 4000/Amd64 3700 systems, or my AMD64 6000 system, but it still serves well but my electricity bill is interesting!