Hi guys. I'm currently trying to do some research into what specs to go with on my new PC. It's main use is going to be FSX. I will have £1000 to spend, maybe stretch to £1100 ish. I want the i7 2600 Sandybridge with a Nvidia graphics card, I've searched the internet and watched videos on Youtube and have an idea what I need but I'd like some advice from people who have the Sandybridge systems. I'll be buying it from Overclockers.co.uk when I come to buy it. Thanks, Jonny.

when you say i7 2600, do you mean the 2600? or the 2600k? Note that only the sandybridge models marked "k" can be overclocked. either way i wouldn't bother with the i7 2600/k. i'd go for the i5 2500k (which is actually what i have) and its pretty amazing - especially for FSX. it's a fair bit cheaper and it's specs are more or less exactly the same besides the lack of hyperthreading (not even helpful with fsx as far as i know), and a lower clock rate (which can be overcome through the amazing overclocking capabilities of the sandybridge architecture) - i was able to get my 2500k up to 4.7GHz :D another thing to note that if you do plan to overclock is that you'll need to get a motherboard with either the P67 or Z68 chipset. hope that's all pretty helpful, if you have any other questions go ahead man i love talking hardware :D

Yeah it would be the i7 2600k if I decide to go that route. Interesting though in regards to your i5, that's another option to consider. Is that air or liquid cooled?

I have mine at the same with a H60 but you could easily get 4.5GHz with a Hyper 212+

yeah mine is also using one of the corsair hydro series water coolers but as andrew said you should be able to easily get the i7 or i5 at around 4 - 4.5GHz on a decent air cooling system. i honestly don't see any possible way to justify getting the i7 2600k for an FSX machine (but if you've got one please share!), plus you can put the savings you make by going with the i5 2500k towards a better cooler... like the monster that is the - Noctua NH-D14... something to consider. hehe.

hey i have oc'd my athlon x3 to 4.0 ghz @1.6 volts on a CM hyper tx3 and no issues. you should be able get good oc on that chip.

The i5 2500k CPU in my new PC is clocked at 4.4Ghz. I use a Thermaltake Frio air cooler, and CoreTemp calculated temperatures seem to top out at 64C during Prime95 tests.

I've just spec'd this up and it's just a tiny bit over my budget but here's the specs, tell me what you think.... i7 2600k overclocked to 4.5ghzCoolIt CPU water coolerAsus P8P67 motherboard8GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz RAMNvidia Geforce GTX580 If this doesn't run FSX then I'll be surprised!

I'd go for a Z68-based motherboard instead (newer tech), but the P67 will be fine. You're set.

I've just spec'd this up and it's just a tiny bit over my budget but here's the specs, tell me what you think.... i7 2600k overclocked to 4.5ghzCoolIt CPU water coolerAsus P8P67 motherboard8GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz RAMNvidia Geforce GTX580 If this doesn't run FSX then I'll be surprised!

You will be. Well initially you will. FSX takes ALOT of tweaking and tuning as you probably know.

SSD! SSD! SSD! haha nah there pretty great but don't make that much difference for frames, only load times/install times obviously. just make sure to get a sata3 hard drive and use the sata3 ports on your motherboard. that system should be pretty rockin man you shouldn't need much else. i'm quite jealous! i've been wanting a gtx580 for god knows how long... hehe.

You will be. Well initially you will. FSX takes ALOT of tweaking and tuning as you probably know.

That's something else I was going to ask. I've done some tweaking but only minor stuff. FSX is gonna be installed totally standard but with Acceleration pack and PMDG 737 installed and Ultimate Terrain X Europe. This is what I'm running now with my Q9650 OC to 3.8GHZ, old 8800GTS and P5KSE motherboard, and it runs it ok, it's useable but I want more! What sort of tweaks would you recommend once I get the new PC?

SSD! SSD! SSD! haha nah there pretty great but don't make that much difference for frames, only load times/install times obviously. just make sure to get a sata3 hard drive and use the sata3 ports on your motherboard. that system should be pretty rockin man you shouldn't need much else. i'm quite jealous! i've been wanting a gtx580 for god knows how long... hehe.

Yeah it should be spot on to be fair, I've seen no end of vids on Youtube with this setup and the results are stunning. The PC is a deal from a company and it'll be built by them, the hard drive is a Western Digital SATA 6Gbps 7200rpm 16GB Cache.

That's something else I was going to ask. I've done some tweaking but only minor stuff. FSX is gonna be installed totally standard but with Acceleration pack and PMDG 737 installed and Ultimate Terrain X Europe. This is what I'm running now with my Q9650 OC to 3.8GHZ, old 8800GTS and P5KSE motherboard, and it runs it ok, it's useable but I want more! What sort of tweaks would you recommend once I get the new PC?

Yeah, well it just seems that when you have spent so much on hardware that you believe that it should run really well and so your standards are set high. If you run at the same settings you run at now, it will probably run very well. But you bought this so you could enjoy more and yes tweaking is essential. First off I would just start with the bojote tweaking tool. Then find your best bufferpools setting, and just google around. I can't just simply recommend a few tweaks for you that will magically work sorry.

Yeah that's fair enough, stupid of me really to ask because I know how much of a nightmare it is to set up! Just been reading those tweaking tools and they look pretty good, I'll give them a go when i get the PC.

You will be. Well initially you will. FSX takes ALOT of tweaking and tuning as you probably know.

This idea that heavy tweaking of the fsx.cfg file is required to get FSX running well on even the most powerful systems available is a myth. I have done no tweaking whatsoever to the fsx.cfg file, and FSX runs superbly well on my i5 2500K PC at maximum detail levels, 1280x1024 resolution, 16xS AA, and 16x AF. That includes the Flight1 Cessna Citation Mustang at UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme (GO Xtreme setting), with Horizon VFR Generation X3 photoscenery, VFR London X, Treescapes UK custom autogen, Ultimate Traffic 2 (set to 100% for airliners and GA), and the freeware FSX Power Project pylon network and power stations installed. For the record, this is the specification of my new PC..... Gigabyte Z68A-D3 motherboardIntel Core i5 2500k CPU @ 4.4GhzThermaltake Frio CPU cooler8GB Corsair DDR3-1600 RAM1GB GeForce GTX 560TiSoundBlaster X-Fi Xtreme Music2TB SATA-III hard disk700W Xigmatek NRP-PC702 PSUWindows 7 Home Premium 64bit