My new FSX PC

Hello again,

I am a long time Flight Sim Enthusiast. I have been simming for 11 years now. All this time I have always had a computer that was just good enough or even barely good enough to play FS2000, FS9 and FSX.

My current PC is a gateway (locked) with a Quad q9550 processor at 2.8 ghz and a 9800gtx 500mb graphics card. I also have a 650gb hard drive and a 1tb media drive partitioned for media, FSX, page file, and a system drive for programs and such. Something is going haywire in it. It isn't the hard drive. It is not worth it to me to fix it. I am done with being held back by this thing. It is 3 years old and I use it heavily for school and home use as well.

It can run FSX pretty well but I cannot max it out at all. I spent way too much on this computer as it is an OEM and not a custom build. I upgraded back to a desktop after having overpriced laptops that ran the programs very poorly.

I considered ending my flight sim hobby and switching over to a Mac since I already have a Macbook and other Apple products. However, the price of those, especially one that could minimize the painful effects of downgrading, are a minimum of $2500. The idea of commonality between all my technology sounds ideal, but not at that price and certainly not without FSX.

$2500 is not worth me giving up my hobby. I am a nursing student and am graduating soon. I will be going back to school online at OHSU in the fall. I love Window's 7. I personally feel like I owe it to myself to get myself a graduation gift. After all, I don't use a laptop for school. I prefer my awesome desktop over any laptop, be it a Mac or a PC.

So, here is my plan.

I bought a very nice enthusiast entry-level, yet high quality, Diablotek Evo ATX mid tower case.

I have heard FSX runs well on an i5 2500 Sandy Bridge, but I like i7s, and I want to keep up with technology. I am planning for the future and FSX is not the only program I use! I don't want to wait for Ivy Bridge. Also, I like the thought of PCIe 3.0 GPU cards. They will be a nice addition if and when Microsoft Flight comes out.

I plan on purchasing a Sandy Bridge E 3930K processor, socket 2011. 2011 is a new type of socket, and should be better than Ivy Bridge. It will also be compatible with it eventually, but by then I won't care much. haha A lot of people say they are overkill and they are only for the serious multi-threading apps. FSX is 70% CPU bound, and is not good at using multiple threads, but I am looking for wiggle room and also into the future (Microsoft Flight). I don't want to regret buying a machine when it becomes too slow to run Flight. Ivy Bridge will not replace the Sandy Bridge E 2011 CPUs for a few years anyway.


So a nice X79 motherboard with quad channel memory (about 8 gigs at 2400 mhz) seems pretty nice. I plan on a single GTX 560ti graphics card for now and will eventually move to PCIe 3.0 cards in SLI in about a year or so. I will add liquid cooling and my new SSD to it as well as a newer SATA 3 hd.


I priced it all out. I have allowed myself to spend about 1800-2k on it. The parts all added up to be about 1700 total. That's a little less than I paid for my overpriced gateway.

Any thoughts?

 

Should I just keep the 9800GTX for now?

 

Thats the age old question, upgrade now or later??

I always say upgrade now, if your considering it and have the cash, do it. Something better will always come out 6 months down the road anyway. I change computer parts more often than I change my underwear.

While I haven't personally used the program your referring to, I can say that a new cpu and gpu will benefit you greatly. Both of those components have come a long way in the past year.

I'm running an i7 920 overclocked to 4.4 Ghz stable (liquid cooled), SLI with two GTX 470's.

So far I have not found anything I couldn't run.

If FSX is 70% CPU bound then purchase accordingly. Liquid cool your pc and overclock it as high as you can. If you upgrade the CPU your 9800GTX will bottleneck it like crazy. It would hinder you considerably. Maybe buy a GTX 560 and see how it holds up. If not, you can always add another.

 

Wow that's a nice system. I totally agree with you. After all, life is short. haha That is good news to hear. This is sounding more and more worth it. Especially since the total cost will still be 3-400 less than a 17 inch Macbook pro. I'd hate to downgrade from a 24 inch monitor.

I'll just run a 560ti and then upgrade later.

Thanks a lot!

 

Buying a MAC is a downgrade..

If you have any hardware questions or would like to liquid cool I'd love to help. I've designed countless setups. I can also guide you through overclocking.

 

The only thing I like about Apple products is the simplification and commonality across the products and the ability to easily connect and sync them. They make networking a breeze.

I plan on water cooling. I was just going to go with a Corsair H70 core with my choice of fans. The case I bought has excellent ventilation as well.

I appreciate your help. I will defiantly need some help with overclocking as I have never owned a PC that I could. ha

 

While the H70 is a great cooler, it's only slightly better than a great air cooler. But since you won't be pushing it to the extreme a lot it should be adequate.

If you go that route you should be fine. But if you wanna go nuts with it let me know, lol.

 

in the past few years when building a new computer for myself, i have never been able to rationalize buying intel components instead of AMD. the difference in performance is hardly noticeable, especially when it comes to gaming. you get more of your moneys worth with AMD in my opinion.

 

Seems like overkill for a sim only PC. IMO, get a core i5, 8 gigs, and a gtx 560, it will run moderately the same and if the CPU doesn't suffice your needs you can always sell the CPU and run an i7 with the same socket (1366?). Also ram keeps getting excessively cheaper, I got an ad this morning with 16 gigs for $90 and 24 gigs for $199. I am probably one of the few people that think the ram is the most important part of the pc so I really don't like to skimp out. Just my two cents.

 

I got an i7 2600k, Asus Sabertooth p67, 8 gigs 1866 CL9 set at 1600 for now, GTX 560ti and three SSDs and a 64 mb cache 1tb hard drive SATA III. Oh and a water cooler. It's running about 24C idle after an hour turned on. Not bad.

I got to thinking about it. I really don't see a Hexacore being of any benefit at this time. I saved a lot of money and was able to pick up a couple extra drives for storage and back up.

 

All for around $1500. Less then my first gaming PC. A lot less than a Macbook Pro!

 

My mom runs this game on a computer I built. You dont need the best processor but 16gb ram and the best graphics card you can afford. Ssd are good too. She even has the yoke, rudder pedals, and throttles so it's damn realistic. Anyway, I run it on my macbook pro and it runs very nice. Not maxed settings but pretty high. A mac will definitely work fine, just bootcamp windows.