Well Im about to bite the bullet and buy this system for my FSX pleasure. Any comments/suggestions are welcome!.Core i7 920(hopefully a D0) buying from neweggAsus p6t motherboardOCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV6GK - RetailCORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750Wcorsair h50 water coolerMSI N275GTX TwinFrozr OC GeForce GTX 275 896MPlease let me know if this will be a nice rigThanks

Well Im about to bite the bullet and buy this system for my FSX pleasure. Any comments/suggestions are welcome!.Core i7 920(hopefully a D0) buying from neweggAsus p6t motherboardOCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Voltage Desktop Memory Model OCZ3P1600LV6GK - RetailCORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750Wcorsair h50 water coolerMSI N275GTX TwinFrozr OC GeForce GTX 275 896MPlease let me know if this will be a nice rigThanks

whats your budget?may want more power that 750W to be on the safe side.If you have the money, get a DX11 video card perhaps?

is there a huge difference between the gtx285 and the gtx275? I could go for the 850w PS its 20 $ more.

is there a huge difference between the gtx285 and the gtx275? I could go for the 850w PS its 20 $ more.

A 750W PSU is more than adequate for your system, with plenty of safety margin. No worries there.DX11 does nothing for FSX.Do some research on that water cooling unit...my experience is that most of the prepackaged compact liquid units don't perform as well as a cheaper high-quality air cooler like the Prolimatech Megahalem or the Thermalright Ultra Extreme (TRUE). A good water system with a high-quality CPU block, 3/4" tubing, a high quality pump, and a 240 or 360mm dual/triple fan radiator absolutely rocks---but the cheap units typically use 1/2" line, noisy and/or unreliable pumps, and a single 120mm radiator, and that may not spell success. RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Swap out the RAM and video card for these, respectivelyhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...6-050-_-Producthttp://www.amazon.com/EVGA-01G-P3-1180-AR-...8428&sr=8-1PSU is solidI'd order the 920 from here to ensure you get a D0 revisionhttp://www.tankguys.com/intel-core-i7-920-d0.htmlI agree about the water cooling, not necessary. Just get this:http://www.crazypc.com/products/ultra-120-1366-50985.html

whats your budget?may want more power that 750W to be on the safe side.If you have the money, get a DX11 video card perhaps?

The 750w will probably be fine but I would take a look at an 850w in case you plan on adding more drives or a second video card in the future.

The 750w will probably be fine but I would take a look at an 850w in case you plan on adding more drives or a second video card in the future.

I see this a lot around these forums so let me clear this up now.You need 4 GPUs to require such a beefy PSU. For any single GPU, single CPU socket PC on the planet you don't need more than a 650W PSU, and that's leaving plenty of margin for overclocking while also allowing for more drives than you could reasonably fit in a case. In fact, you're unlikely to ever need more than a 650W PSU for even the most demanding dual GPU system, even. See my signature for an example of this. I run a Q9550 @ 4GHz and an o/c'd GTX 285 on a 550W PSU. More fans than you can shake a stick at and a 640GB and 1TB HD as well.

i should have qualified my statements a little more:DX11 card if you want to get other new games and use DX11. If only FSX, then no worries.Spend more on a bigger PSU if you think you may want to SLI or CrossFire in the near future.Like I said, comes down to your budget and what you want this build to accomplish for you.

I see this a lot around these forums so let me clear this up now.You need 4 GPUs to require such a beefy PSU. For any single GPU, single CPU socket PC on the planet you don't need more than a 650W PSU, and that's leaving plenty of margin for overclocking while also allowing for more drives than you could reasonably fit in a case. In fact, you're unlikely to ever need more than a 650W PSU for even the most demanding dual GPU system, even. See my signature for an example of this. I run a Q9550 @ 4GHz and an o/c'd GTX 285 on a 550W PSU. More fans than you can shake a stick at and a 640GB and 1TB HD as well.

It makes sense that the folks selling us the PSU's would setup these calculators in a way(I was using the newegg calculator) that would make us purchase the more expensive power supplies. I get that. The newegg calculator suggests an 860w power supply if you run 2 260 or 2 275 cards in SLI on the Corei7 platform. I suggested an 850w power supply because that gives somebody a little extra room to grow if they decide to build a SLI system. A P4 system I built a while back had a 450w power supply and at the time, that was considered to a be a big PSU. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me that the power requirements on what equates to a workstation has doubled in the last 6 years. As a systems engineer by trade, I always like to build in a little extra overhead when I submit my architecture requirements for review. I do the same thing when I build a system at home. Are there any utilities out there currently that can measure the load on a PSU? I would like some hard facts and numbers. A nice pretty graph would be nice too! :( The reason this keeps coming up in the forums is because of these PSU calculators online and the general public assumes that they are getting a somewhat honest suggestion on the sizing of the power supply.

You can get a Kill-a-watt meter and hook it up to your surge protector/AVR/UPS to get a real-time wattage measurement.

You can get a Kill-a-watt meter and hook it up to your surge protector/AVR/UPS to get a real-time wattage measurement.

I will do that thanks! Until I have evidence to the contrary, I am going to have to assume that these big nasty video cards they are making these days will require some serious juice if you want to run 2.

thanks for all the great responses! I have a tough task ahead of me. I think im going to go with everything in my 1st post save the memory(will get the mushkin 6-7-6) and maybe the gtx285, even though I think the 275 is a great value for 229 @ newegg.

I did it guys! I went with the i7 920 after a long hard thought process. Yes, I spent a little more but this chipset is more stable in the OC department and it is a proven winner for FSX. I also got the gtx975 for 200 bucks. If I dont like the performance I will return and get a gtx 285. PSU wise I went for the corsair750w and I got corsair 7-7-7 Ram as well. Im gonna build my system tonight and tomorrow load windows 7 x64 and fsx. Will post results of OC and fsx gameplay in the next few days. Thanks.