Advise Needed For Computer Upgrade For Fs9

[fwerff 70]

Hi There!As most serious FSimmers, I am in a constant pursue for higher framerates. Therefor I need some advise on a possible computer upgrade for FS9....Yeah yeah, I know, FSX is now the virtual place to be, but on my current rig it will not perform satisfactory enough and for the next 1 to 1,5 year I can not affort to buy myself a new high-end system.Besides that, over the year I've spend quite a lot of money on addons, which do not yet have a good FSX successor and I am not willing to give up on.Currently I have an AMD dual core FX-60 which is slightly overclocked to 2.8GHz. It's supported by 2Gigs of dual-channel RAM and FS runs from a separate 2x160Gb RAID 0 array. (WinXP and other software is on a different SATA2 drive).An Asus 8600GT 512MB Silent is taking care of the graphics.With all the addons I have installed (500+ scenery layers in my scenery.cfg), my system now and then has some problems getting it all running at a satisfactory framerate.Approaching a fully stocked with AI traphic Aerosoft's Heathrow 2008 in PMDG's 747-400 or Level-D's 767-300, while ActiveSky generates some wonderful cumules clouds, will bring my framerate back to a mere 10fps.... if I'm lucky...Now I know I might be asking to much, but I would like to stay above 20fps in scenario's like this.Since I can not affort to jump to a new Core i7 system and I don't believe a faster graphicscard will help FS9 very much, I am thinking of getting myself a Pentium 4 3.2GHz or 3.4GHz. Proc, Motherboard and Memory shouldn't cost me that much and since FS9 only supports one processor core at the time, it seems like the P4 3.2/3.4 could give me a performance jump.Besides that (and I don't want to start an AMD vs Intel flaming ware), I have the impression that at least as far as FS9 goes, Intel processors produce better framerates than equal AMD processors...I would appreciate to get some feedback on this and have your advise....Best regards,Frank

[Guest blazingcessna]

How much are you budgeting?I would suggest teh followingAMD Phenom 9950MSI or Gigabyte Main board4Gb of ramJust use the rest of your stuff. You can probably get all of this under 550 USD. I also suggest a 600w or higher power supply, but a 550 will work.

[fwerff 70]

How much are you budgeting?I would suggest teh followingAMD Phenom 9950MSI or Gigabyte Main board4Gb of ramJust use the rest of your stuff. You can probably get all of this under 550 USD. I also suggest a 600w or higher power supply, but a 550 will work.

Budgeting as little as possible. 200 Euro's / 250 USD would initially be the max, although if I have some form of confidence it will help me to gain a major performance increase, I maybe able to invest 300 Euro's / 375 USD.Concerning the processor you propose; I see that the Phenom 9950 is a Quadcore 2.6GHz. Given that my current FX60 is standardly also a 2.6GHz proc, but "only" dualcore, would you expect that the Phenom is significant faster than my FX60?The fact that it's a quadcore, will not help with FS9. FSX would probably benefit from it, but that's currently not what I'm looking for...I understand the DDR2 Ram will help a bit due to the higher bandwidth I have currently, but would it differ that much? Same question for the 4Gb vs 2Gb. I've always thought that in my case the processor is the bottleneck.Thanks for your input. Would appreciate your comments on above stated.Best regards,Frank

[Guest AvSynergy]

How much are you budgeting?I would suggest teh followingAMD Phenom 9950MSI or Gigabyte Main board4Gb of ramJust use the rest of your stuff. You can probably get all of this under 550 USD. I also suggest a 600w or higher power supply, but a 550 will work.

I'd suggest the fastest dual core you can afford since FS9 and FSX especially are processor bound. I've heard good things about the phenom. Yes, you do need a high end graphics card, but an ATI 4850 can be had for under $150.

[VS0 23]

I agree completely with AvSynergy the best dual core you can afford will help you out loads.Richy

[jfri 42]

I'd suggest the fastest dual core you can afford since FS9 and FSX especially are processor bound. I've heard good things about the phenom. Yes, you do need a high end graphics card, but an ATI 4850 can be had for under $150.

What good things? I have heard that Intel is still much better.

[fwerff 70]

I agree completely with AvSynergy the best dual core you can afford will help you out loads.Richy

But.... FS9 only supports a single core. In which way will a dual-core then help me out?Best regards,Frank