LOOKING TO BUILD A NEW PC FOR FSX THEN LOOK HERE!

[FAC257]

Ted
Well I got it pretty close and partly because of some of your earlier advice.

Here's what the final product looked like after I got it all together about Thanksgiving time.

It's got the:
Asus X-58 Sabertooth
I7 950
ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU
6GB Corsair Dominator 1600-C7 (PC12800)
ZALMAN 9900 CNPS (Nickel Plated Version)
Corsair 850AX

She's running on W7 Ultimate 64bit

Attachment 29033

Attachment 29034

Reading your earlier recommendations in different threads in here helped me fine tune what I thought I wanted.

At the time one of the items I was really up in the air about was the CPU cooler. I had it down to a few I liked and then went with the 9900 at the last minute. I was so fickle about the cooler choice I actually ordered it a couple of days after I had the rest of the parts on the way.


FAC

[txnetcop]

Ted
Well I got it pretty close and partly because of some of your earlier advice.

Here's what the final product looked like after I got it all together about Thanksgiving time.

It's got the:
Asus X-58 Sabertooth
I7 950
ASUS ENGTX460 DirectCU
6GB Corsair Dominator 1600-C7 (PC12800)
ZALMAN 9900 CNPS (Nickel Plated Version)
Corsair 850AX

She's running on W7 Ultimate 64bit

Attachment 29033

Attachment 29034

Reading your earlier recommendations in different threads in here helped me fine tune what I thought I wanted.

At the time one of the items I was really up in the air about was the CPU cooler. I had it down to a few I liked and then went with the 9900 at the last minute. I was so fickle about the cooler choice I actually ordered it a couple of days after I had the rest of the parts on the way.


FAC

OUTSTANDING BUILD! I bet your loving it! That 950 when OC'd just a little is real kick-arse!
Glad I could help
Ted

[txnetcop]

Hi Ted

Thanks fo all of the info in this thread. I need to buy a new pc. Looking at what you recommend, I am seriously considering the following. BTW, I am in the UK and use my pc mainly for FSX.

This is the basic build -

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/pc/range/iforge.html

I can leave out the two 1gb HDs and have one of these instead -

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...d6000hlhx.html

The only other thing that I am considering is to have either this -

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...m3a1600c9.html

or this -

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/p...m3a1600c8.html

memory installed instead of the standard build.

I will be running W7.

Any comments and observations would be most gratefully received

Many thanks if you can find the time to look at this.

Cheers

Paul

Hey Paul looks like a decent build. Ask them if they could go with Cosair Dominator 1600mhz memory? Also what motherboard do they put in there...it matters. I'm a big fan of the Velociraptor HDs so go for it.
Ted

[paulb]

Hey Paul looks like a decent build. Ask them if they could go with Cosair Dominator 1600mhz memory? Also what motherboard do they put in there...it matters. I'm a big fan of the Velociraptor HDs so go for it.
Ted

Thanks for the feedback Ted

I very much appreciate your taking the time to check out my proposed build

Best regards

Paul

[Lewis-A2A]

Ok here it is;

OS
Windows 7 Pro 64

CPU
i7 2600

RAM
16GB DDR3 Corsair Vengence

Mobo
Asus P8P67

Graphics
Nvidia 460GTX 1GB

HDD
SATA3 650GB
SATA2 500GB
SATA2 250GB
External USB 500GB

Slowly building it past two days, basicly just got OS, FSX and emails up at the moment, Ill be hoping to complete the build this weekend, I have to get my steam list downloaded to see how it handles ARMAII and Railworks2, + of course FSX is screaming along nicely.

[txnetcop]

Ok here it is;

OS
Windows 7 Pro 64

CPU
i7 2600

RAM
16GB DDR3 Corsair Vengence

Mobo
Asus P8P67

Graphics
Nvidia 460GTX 1GB

HDD
SATA3 650GB
SATA2 500GB
SATA2 250GB
External USB 500GB

Slowly building it past two days, basicly just got OS, FSX and emails up at the moment, Ill be hoping to complete the build this weekend, I have to get my steam list downloaded to see how it handles ARMAII and Railworks2, + of course FSX is screaming along nicely.

I can tell you from first hand experience it should handle ARMAII effortlessly...ARMAII is one of several test engines for us at TechCorp. All of our 2600K are OC'd to 3.8Ghz however...don't know if that is going to make a huge difference. Congrats Lewis!

I assume you are not overclocking what are your settings for FSX? In my test which kept FSX at 33fps (fraps avg) were in Orbx PNW-NO GEX just REX2.0 and UT-Home field was Olympia and Renton:

Used Nvidia Inspector to set up VGA
filtering-anistropic
anti-aliasing handled by VGA Gigabyte OC'd 470GTX
full screen resolution graphics were at 1900x1080
global texture resolution-very high
Detail radius- large
mesh complexity- full 100
mesh resolution- 2m
texture resolution- 7m
water high- 2x
scenery complexity- extremely dense
autogen-very dense
special effects-high
cloud draw-80mi
thermal visualization-natural
cloud detail-max
airline traffic density 100-
general aviation 100
airport density-high
land and sea traffic 20%

[Lewis-A2A]

Well ted, the system is thanks to your list in this thread hehe, I was able to find a good uk retailer thanks to some bods over at A2A and just go through the list matching best I could for my budget and needs.

No overclocking, Ive had bad experiences in the past with OC'ing and just like to turn it on and away we go, only OC will be BIOS auto stuff. And on that topic these new EFI bios' are bloody brilliant!

Ill have to play with the FSX settings, Ive not really done much so far. I spent most of last night helping my housemate upgrade his pc with my old parts. Hes a Computing student and his old AMD4000+ was fine for his needs but if he has my old Core2 he can join me online in ARMA fun, and being ex-army he is rather looking forward to it.

The Ram and processor is going to be mucho fun when editing too, I cant wait to test the processing and encoding with the i7, the large amount of RAM and Cuda 3d card.

Anyway Lunch is nearly over back to work, got a shed load of laptops to build, then rush home for A2A work + finish installing/downloading stuff.

[paulb]

Hey Paul looks like a decent build. Ask them if they could go with Cosair Dominator 1600mhz memory? Also what motherboard do they put in there...it matters. I'm a big fan of the Velociraptor HDs so go for it.
Ted

Hi Ted

Yes, they can go with the Corsair Dominator 1600mhz memory.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 Intel X58 (socket 1366) mobo. Is that OK?

One further question please - is it worth my buying a SSD HD as well - just for the operating system? I can get a 64GB one at an OK price. FSX would still be installed on the VelociRaptor. I know that the SSD would speed up inital W7 loading times, but I switch my pc on first thing in the morning and then switch it off when I go to bed. I don't know what impact the faster SSD drive would have during normal/FSX usage? Plus I dont want to spend more cash unless I get a worthwhile benefit!

Cheers

Paul

[txnetcop]

Hi Ted

Yes, they can go with the Corsair Dominator 1600mhz memory.

The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 Intel X58 (socket 1366) mobo. Is that OK?

One further question please - is it worth my buying a SSD HD as well - just for the operating system? I can get a 64GB one at an OK price. FSX would still be installed on the VelociRaptor. I know that the SSD would speed up inital W7 loading times, but I switch my pc on first thing in the morning and then switch it off when I go to bed. I don't know what impact the faster SSD drive would have during normal/FSX usage? Plus I dont want to spend more cash unless I get a worthwhile benefit!

Cheers

Paul

Excellent motherboard for the price they are asking. FSX responds very well to SSDs the problem in the past has been the price. 64GB is not big enough for FSX if you use a lot of scenery and aircraft. I would go for at least a 120GB if the price is right. However with what you have ordered you don't not absolutely need the SSD to make an enjoyable experience with FSX.
Ted

[paulb]

Excellent motherboard for the price they are asking. FSX responds very well to SSDs the problem in the past has been the price. 64GB is not big enough for FSX if you use a lot of scenery and aircraft. I would go for at least a 120GB if the price is right. However with what you have ordered you don't not absolutely need the SSD to make an enjoyable experience with FSX.
Ted

Thanks again Ted

I think that I will go with the spec but stay with just the VelociRaptor.

Cheers

Paul

[txnetcop]

Thanks again Ted

I think that I will go with the spec but stay with just the VelociRaptor.

Cheers

Paul

We are not allowed to write public reviews in depth because we report only to the mfg however here is a review consistent with our findings on your motherboard. I favor the ASUS Sabretooth over the Gigabyte USB3 but most builders charge $70-$80 additional for that board which is very unfair. Anyway it is a fast board that does very well in gaming. Watch your temps because it does not have the heavy duty heatsinks that the big boys have.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/rev...58-usb3_review
Ted

[paulb]

We are not allowed to write public reviews in depth because we report only to the mfg however here is a review consistent with our findings on your motherboard. I favor the ASUS Sabretooth over the Gigabyte USB3 but most builders charge $70-$80 additional for that board which is very unfair. Anyway it is a fast board that does very well in gaming. Watch your temps because it does not have the heavy duty heatsinks that the big boys have.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/rev...58-usb3_review
Ted

Thanks Ted,

Yes it looks fine for what I need and the total price that I plan to pay. The case itself has a big fan at the front plus a couple of large side vents where I could also install a fan if needed.

Cheers

Paul

[paulb]

Hi Ted

Well, I am still going around in circles and soon I might disappear up my own ### .

The company that I plan to purchase from has just released a pc (which I can mod) with a 2600 processor (note not a 2600K) at what looks like a good price. Also I see that NVidea have dropped the GTX470 and replaced it with (almost the same but very slightly better) a GTX560.

So I have been doing the sums yet again!

In truth, I am very keen to get a SSD into my build - mainly after getting the OrbX scenery which I fly 90% of the time nowadays. It's just that the scenery takes so long to load. I am very tempted by the Intel X25-M 160GB Drive SATA-II (£338 over her in the UK plus £7 for the fitting kit).

Anyways, I will keep going around in circles and hope that I am still here on Monday!

Cheers

Paul

[paulb]

Hi Ted

Just an update from me. I have spent time searching many other forums and reading lots of teccy reviews. Here is my current thinking. This is my summary of everything that I have read.

Firstly, FSX is an old buggy programme, so whatever I go with, I will still need to add a few tweaks to my config and will need to think about my settings ie I will not be able to just max everything in every situation.

Processor -
The i7 2600K comes out top (just). In games (as opposed to tests) there seems little difference between an i7 2600K and an i7 950. Sometimes one is slightly faster, sometimes the other one. The 2500K is not a lot slower and is a little cheaper. No-one favours the unclocked 2600 or 2500, mainly because the price difference is fairly small compared with the K versions. However, the 2600K scores ahead of the 950 because of its overclocking ability – hence my choice. BTW, the i7 980 seems to remain top of the pile, but at a considerable price premium.

Motherboard –
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4 (probably), although the Asus P8P67 Pro or the Asus P8P67 De Luxe are good alternatives.

Graphics Card –
NVidea GTX560i OC. Basically this is a price/performance call for me. In terms of performance starting at a GTX460 and working up, the list goes GTX460/GTX470/GTX560/GTX570/GTX580. With a bigger budget, the GTX570 and then the GTX580 will offer a performance increase. I might still go for a GTX570! I have chosen NVidea mainly because of their good driver support.

Memory –
8GB ram Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600MHz dual channel in two 4GB sticks. Although I am still considering the Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz ram which has a slightly lower voltage. Other good makes of ram may be equally good, but the Corsair always comes out well, plus the dual channel 8GB appears to make sense with an i7 2600K in W7 64 bit. Two 4GB sticks are suggested as the ‘sweet spot’. Going faster than 1600MHz does not appear to offer any advantage.

Main HD –
Intel X25-M 160GB SSD. HDs tend to be the slowest part of most systems. Loading times with complex scenery are just to long for me nowadays. Hence the choice of a fast SSD. In terms of size, 160GB is about the smallest (for me) with an install of W7, FSX (with add ons) and a few other necessary programmes. The Crucial C300 256GB is an option, but I have chosen the ‘quality’ Intel SSD after reading various reviews.

2nd HD –
Current thinking is a WD Caviar Black 640GB which will handle my needs. This may change.

Monitor –
HannG HG281D 28” 16:10 monitor which will be run at its native resolution of 1920 by 1200.

750W silent power supply
A fast DVD + RW
A good case with a couple of fans

Cheers

Paul

[txnetcop]

Hi Ted

Just an update from me. I have spent time searching many other forums and reading lots of teccy reviews. Here is my current thinking. This is my summary of everything that I have read.

Firstly, FSX is an old buggy programme, so whatever I go with, I will still need to add a few tweaks to my config and will need to think about my settings ie I will not be able to just max everything in every situation.

Processor -
The i7 2600K comes out top (just). In games (as opposed to tests) there seems little difference between an i7 2600K and an i7 950. Sometimes one is slightly faster, sometimes the other one. The 2500K is not a lot slower and is a little cheaper. No-one favours the unclocked 2600 or 2500, mainly because the price difference is fairly small compared with the K versions. However, the 2600K scores ahead of the 950 because of its overclocking ability – hence my choice. BTW, the i7 980 seems to remain top of the pile, but at a considerable price premium.

Motherboard –
Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4 (probably), although the Asus P8P67 Pro or the Asus P8P67 De Luxe are good alternatives.

Graphics Card –
NVidea GTX560i OC. Basically this is a price/performance call for me. In terms of performance starting at a GTX460 and working up, the list goes GTX460/GTX470/GTX560/GTX570/GTX580. With a bigger budget, the GTX570 and then the GTX580 will offer a performance increase. I might still go for a GTX570! I have chosen NVidea mainly because of their good driver support.

Memory –
8GB ram Corsair Dominator DDR3 1600MHz dual channel in two 4GB sticks. Although I am still considering the Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz ram which has a slightly lower voltage. Other good makes of ram may be equally good, but the Corsair always comes out well, plus the dual channel 8GB appears to make sense with an i7 2600K in W7 64 bit. Two 4GB sticks are suggested as the ‘sweet spot’. Going faster than 1600MHz does not appear to offer any advantage.

Main HD –
Intel X25-M 160GB SSD. HDs tend to be the slowest part of most systems. Loading times with complex scenery are just to long for me nowadays. Hence the choice of a fast SSD. In terms of size, 160GB is about the smallest (for me) with an install of W7, FSX (with add ons) and a few other necessary programmes. The Crucial C300 256GB is an option, but I have chosen the ‘quality’ Intel SSD after reading various reviews.

2nd HD –
Current thinking is a WD Caviar Black 640GB which will handle my needs. This may change.

Monitor –
HannG HG281D 28” 16:10 monitor which will be run at its native resolution of 1920 by 1200.

750W silent power supply
A fast DVD + RW
A good case with a couple of fans

Cheers

Paul

Hey Paul that looks super. By the way the 2600K is unlocked so you can really step that little rascal up if you can keep it cool! I have one running at 4.5GHz in the test lab on air but it still runs real close to the "don't go here zone" when gaming. Yes 980X is top of the heap with 1.7 Billion transistors powering it but like you said...at a premium price. Your configuration is super fine! A good case is critical.
Ted

[paulb]

Hi Ted

Many thanks! Getting the 'thumbs up' from you gives me a warm feeling!

Can I ask please - what do you suggest in terms of cooling and cases? I have been thinking of one of the Coolermaster cases? I am thinking of going with air cooling but again am not really sure of what would be suitable for my system.


Thanks

Paul

[txnetcop]

Hi Ted

Many thanks! Getting the 'thumbs up' from you gives me a warm feeling!

Can I ask please - what do you suggest in terms of cooling and cases? I have been thinking of one of the Coolermaster cases? I am thinking of going with air cooling but again am not really sure of what would be suitable for my system.


Thanks

Paul

I am partial to full tower cases especially the Antec 1200, NZXT Phantom and Khaos, Cooler Master 932, Thermaltake Armor Plus, Corsair Obsidian these full towers allowed for many video cards in SLI and Crossfire for the bigger motherboards, cooling was EXCELLENT and offered many options for CPU/Heatsinks the CON is weight and size ya gotta have a place to put 'em! But not one mid-tower compared with the cooling capacity of the FULL Towers in all of our test. Not to say that there are not some really good mid-towers out there.

The 2600k is easy to cool...I am huge fan of the new Zalmans

[paulb]

I am partial to full tower cases especially the Antec 1200, NZXT Phantom and Khaos, Cooler Master 932, Thermaltake Armor Plus, Corsair Obsidian these full towers allowed for many video cards in SLI and Crossfire for the bigger motherboards, cooling was EXCELLENT and offered many options for CPU/Heatsinks the CON is weight and size ya gotta have a place to put 'em! But not one mid-tower compared with the cooling capacity of the FULL Towers in all of our test. Not to say that there are not some really good mid-towers out there.

The 2600k is easy to cool...I am huge fan of the new Zalmans

Thanks again Ted, I will look at what you have suggested.

Cheers

Paul

[OleBoy]

Something I could not send back is a very nice full tower case made by Silverstone. I got the Temjin Tj10B-WNV http://www.silverstonetek.com/products/TJ10-WNV.php

[txnetcop]

I just finished testing FSX on our i7 2600K SandyBridge unit at TechCorp vs the old budget i7Core 950 for the second time. The results are about the same as last time. While the stock i7 2600k is about 38-40% faster than the stock i7 950 that difference did not show up in FSX. It did show up in some other games like Left For Dead, BIOSHOCK, FAR CRY2, and CALL FOR DUTY Black OPS. It was 5-9 frames per second faster in each game. Overclocked to 4.2 the i7 950 on an ASUS Sabretooth mother board outdistanced the i72600k by 3-5 frame rates per second and in FSX it ran 5 fps faster on avg. I could only overclock the i7 2600 to 4 ghz for some reason-still looking into it!

Why I still believe the i7 950 with a very good motherboard..those mentioned at the beginning of the thread, is a better deal to start with. The upgrade path for the 1366 socket is better because it leads to the capability to go to hex core. The 980X is very powerful even in FSX there is gain but just not enough to justify spending $1000.00 on just the CPU unless you happen to be rolling in GREEN stuff like Hey Moe! It may come in handy for Microsoft Flight...I don't know that for sure yet. The point is build your system so that you can upgrade when you gaming demands it. For the SandyBridge boards i7 2600k is top dog and there will be a 2800k in few months but no planned six cores. Bandwidth is everything when comes to flight simulation. If you are on a budget or just cautious I still say go with the i7 Core 950 to start. Just choose the best compatible memory, motherboard and video to make your experience enjoyable! Will you still get micro-stutters-only when you exceed the limitations of your setup!
Ted

I will add that if you are one of those that rarely upgrades there is no fault in starting with the i7 2600k SandyBridge just make sure you buy a premium motherboard and 1600mhz memory for FSX

[paulb]

I just finished testing FSX on our i7 2600K SandyBridge unit at TechCorp vs the old budget i7Core 950 for the second time. The results are about the same as last time. While the stock i7 2600k is about 38-40% faster than the stock i7 950 that difference did not show up in FSX. It did show up in some other games like Left For Dead, BIOSHOCK, FAR CRY2, and CALL FOR DUTY Black OPS. It was 5-9 frames per second faster in each game. Overclocked to 4.2 the i7 950 on an ASUS Sabretooth mother board outdistanced the i72600k by 3-5 frame rates per second and in FSX it ran 5 fps faster on avg. I could only overclock the i7 2600 to 4 ghz for some reason-still looking into it!

Why I still believe the i7 950 with a very good motherboard..those mentioned at the beginning of the thread, is a better deal to start with. The upgrade path for the 1366 socket is better because it leads to the capability to go to hex core. The 980X is very powerful even in FSX there is gain but just not enough to justify spending $1000.00 on just the CPU unless you happen to be rolling in GREEN stuff like Hey Moe! It may come in handy for Microsoft Flight...I don't know that for sure yet. The point is build your system so that you can upgrade when you gaming demands it. For the SandyBridge boards i7 2600k is top dog and there will be a 2800k in few months but no planned six cores. Bandwidth is everything when comes to flight simulation. If you are on a budget or just cautious I still say go with the i7 Core 950 to start. Just choose the best compatible memory, motherboard and video to make your experience enjoyable! Will you still get micro-stutters-only when you exceed the limitations of your setup!
Ted

I will add that if you are one of those that rarely upgrades there is no fault in starting with the i7 2600k SandyBridge just make sure you buy a premium motherboard and 1600mhz memory for FSX

Hi Ted

That is very interesting. Thanks for sharing the info with us. Interestingly, I have been reading a number of game comparisons on different sites over the past few days. They don't test FSX any longer, but when they tested 'cpu intensive' games - there was no 'real' difference between the unclocked i7 950 and an unclocked i7 2600K. That brought me to the conclusion that 'probably' I would not see any difference between them in FSX either. Your test now confirms that.

Interesting to hear of the forthcoming 2800K.

Out of interest what speed was your memory in the FSX test?

Cheers

Paul

[txnetcop]

Hi Ted

That is very interesting. Thanks for sharing the info with us. Interestingly, I have been reading a number of game comparisons on different sites over the past few days. They don't test FSX any longer, but when they tested 'cpu intensive' games - there was no 'real' difference between the unclocked i7 950 and an unclocked i7 2600K. That brought me to the conclusion that 'probably' I would not see any difference between them in FSX either. Your test now confirms that.

Interesting to hear of the forthcoming 2800K.

Out of interest what speed was your memory in the FSX test?

Cheers

Paul

Hi Paul...1600mhz on both systems

[paulb]

Thanks Ted

[BushAV8R]

Hi,

What would you think about the following setup?

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K
Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems incl. BeQuiet! PWM (TOP!)
Board: ASUS P8P67 Deluxe, Intel P67
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1280MB
RAM: 8GB Corsair XMS3 Dominator DDR3-1600 CL7
Disc: 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 32MB Cache, SATA2
Power: 700W BeQuiet! System Power
Case: Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced

Would be great to hear a few comments. This setup is around $2000 or 1500 euros.

Thanks!

-Pete

[kilo delta]

Hi,

What would you think about the following setup?

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K
Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems incl. BeQuiet! PWM (TOP!)
Board: ASUS P8P67 Deluxe, Intel P67
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1280MB
RAM: 8GB Corsair XMS3 Dominator DDR3-1600 CL7
Disc: 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 32MB Cache, SATA2
Power: 700W BeQuiet! System Power
Case: Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced

Would be great to hear a few comments. This setup is around $2000 or 1500 euros.

Thanks!

-Pete

Looks to be a good 'un. Personally...I'm holding off a bit on my Sandy Bridge build.