Budget Custom Build PC for FS9/FSX

[tomparkes 0]

Hi guys,I am new here, and would like to begin by saying how useful I have found these forums to be. I have only recently become interested in flight simulation, and am currently using FS9 on an old PC with severely inadequate spec. Over the next while I am looking to put together a PC that will give me far better performance, but on a relatively tight budget. I was under the impression that a half-decent FSX rig was going to be way out of my league, however after reading through a number of very informative posts on this forum, I have decided perhaps I could obtain reasonable FPS without completely breaking the bank. I am in the UK and my budget is around £600 (approx. $900 USD).I am not currently familiar with over-clocking, and have never attempted building my own PC, but I am fairly technically-minded and am sure with a little research I will manage just fine (hopefully!). I am assuming that over-clocking will be necessary to achieve better results? Here is a list of potential components based on my research thus far:CPU: Intel Core i5 2500kMB: ASRock H61M/U3S3RAM: Mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1333MHzGPU: GTX 460 1GBHDD: Seagate Barracuda ST500DM002 500GB SATA 6.0GbpsDVD: ASUS SATA 24x DVD BurnerPSU: Corsair 500w 80PLUSCase: Cooler Master HAF 912 with 2 x 120mm case fansCooler: Stock cooler included with CPUIntegrated sound and ethernet with motherboardAll of this comes to around £575 (based on Amazon UK prices). Is there another place you would recommend to purchase components?I will be using only one monitor (for now) at around 1680x1050 I guess. I have a few add-ons and will likely purchase more, eg. iFly or PMDG 737 and some scenery etc. Am I likely to achieve reasonable FPS from this rig at this kind of resolution? If FSX is going to struggle, I may end up sticking with FS9 but it would be great to be able to upgrade. I will also most likely be running Windows 7 x64, as I can see from this forum that it is likely to be my best bet in order to keep everything current/up to date.Is the PSU I have listed adequate for this rig, also?Apologies for so many questions, but this seems like something of a minefield to me and there is so much information out there I am starting to get a little lost!If there is anything I have failed to mention then please let me know.Many thanks in advance, your advice/expertise is much appreciated.Tom.

[thefsxflyer 1]

Well to start, you have the wrong motherboard for overclocking. You want to get a P67 or Z68 chipset board. This allows you to overclock. Also if you are going to overclock the stock cooler isn't going to get you far. I've been there done that LOL In my sig is my first computer I've ever built and I used the stock cooler for a while and quickly learned that it doesn't cut it for moderate to extreme overclocks. Also, I could be wrong about this but getting a Sata III 6gb/s drive isn't really worth it as the HDD won't even really fill the bandwidth of a 3gb/s SATA II connection. So you could save yourself a few bucks getting a 3gb/s driveOne last note, the power supply if you kind find the money, get a modular power supply. I made the mistake and not getting one and even in my Corsair 600T with the EXCELLENT cable management features, it still sucks to find places for the extra cables. Non modular isn't bad it's just sometimes a pain to deal with extra cables. Modular power supplies are more expensive though. Last, I don't live in the UK but I've heard of this place selling computer stuff. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/Hmm, I feel like a jerk based on how I wrote that post. I didn't mean it that way.

Edited January 16, 2012 by thefsxflyer

[kjjj11223344 48]

To add to the previous post, if you plan to overclock I recommend the coolermaster hyper 212. It is fairly cheap and will get your i5 to 4.5ghz easily (my i7 with hyperthreading enabled running prime95 for example has a core temp of 72 on the hottest core so you could probably do even more than 4.5). Also, I agree on the modular psu if you have the money, as it can become a pain to get a neat looking rig with a non-modular psu which has a lot of cables (like mine).

[tomparkes 0]

Thanks for the responses guys.So the P67 mobo would be a good choice? It's not out of my budget by any means, so I would definitely be fine with that. Also I had wondered about needing another cooler if overclocking, so thanks for that. Again, not too pricey and well worth the investment I am sure. Wouldn't wanna spend time and money putting this thing together, only to find it all melting away before my eyes!So is a modular PSU necessary, or would it just be helpful? I mean, if I stuck with the PSU listed above, would it be adequate in powering everything I have mentioned here? I'm not really sure what one is...does it just eradicate the need for more cables within the machine itself? I would probably be fine without one, as long as everything worked OK.

Hmm, I feel like a jerk based on how I wrote that post. I didn't mean it that way.

Haha, no need to feel like a jerk...it didn't come across that way at all!

[kjjj11223344 48]

Thanks for the responses guys.So the P67 mobo would be a good choice? It's not out of my budget by any means, so I would definitely be fine with that. Also I had wondered about needing another cooler if overclocking, so thanks for that. Again, not too pricey and well worth the investment I am sure. Wouldn't wanna spend time and money putting this thing together, only to find it all melting away before my eyes!So is a modular PSU necessary, or would it just be helpful? I mean, if I stuck with the PSU listed above, would it be adequate in powering everything I have mentioned here? I'm not really sure what one is...does it just eradicate the need for more cables within the machine itself? I would probably be fine without one, as long as everything worked OK.Haha, no need to feel like a jerk...it didn't come across that way at all!

Yes a 500 w should be adequate if you just plane on getting a 460. About the modular psu, yes it is a luxury, as if you're like me, a large amount of cables will drive you insane. However, if you are willing to deal with the cables, you can save your money and buy non-modular. Also, a p67 board will be fine, but, I wouldn't recommend this board I have. I don't know if it's fixed in newer versions, but it has vdroop issues so it is difficult to obtain a stable voltage when overclocking.

[tomparkes 0]

Thanks, that's great. I actually found a modular PSU similar to the standard PSU I was looking at, and it is only £10 more so definitely seems worth it.

I wouldn't recommend this board I have

Do you mean the Gigabyte version of the P67 that you are using? That was actually the one I was looking at. For about £15 extra I could get the ASRock board, so I am assuming this might be better?

[thefsxflyer 1]

There are also Asus boards you can look at. All that matters for you when looking at motherboards is that it has a 1155 socket and its either a P67 or Z68 chipset if you want to overclock. Also when I built this computer I certainly wished I would have gone modular when I had my system in an Antec 300. Now that I have this Corsair 600T case having a non modular psu isn't so bad as all the cables can hide behind the motherboard tray.

[ZachLW 37]

Do you mean the Gigabyte version of the P67 that you are using? That was actually the one I was looking at. For about £15 extra I could get the ASRock board, so I am assuming this might be better?

Asus, Asrock, Gigabyte, MSI. They're all legitimate manufacturers.Weigh the features your need and the cost. It's a laborious task to decide which motherboard will suit your needs, but Newegg's compare feature sure helps a lot. How many USB 2.0/3.0 ports do you need on the back? Will you need the features of the Z68 over the P67? If you want to keep a tighter budget, go for the Mobo I'm using-- $110. My Asus Z68 Pro motherboard fried 4 weeks ago, so here I am using this bargain board! Edited January 17, 2012 by ZachLW

[Ben Cap 89]

My Asus Z68 Pro motherboard fried 4 weeks ago, so here I am using this bargain board!

Trying to overclock or just a fluke?

[kjjj11223344 48]

Thanks, that's great. I actually found a modular PSU similar to the standard PSU I was looking at, and it is only £10 more so definitely seems worth it.Do you mean the Gigabyte version of the P67 that you are using? That was actually the one I was looking at. For about £15 extra I could get the ASRock board, so I am assuming this might be better?

Yeah I meant this specific models (the ud4's etc I don't think suffer from the same problem but I'm not completely sure as I have only used the ud3). Basically, it has ridiculous vdroop so I need to set a vcore of 1.4 to achieve about 1.3 vcore under load. So I basically have to use offset voltage which, long story short, sometimes, for brief seconds, causes my vcore to shoot up to 1.36 approximately. I had this same board pre-b3 revision, and got this one I have now (the b3 revision version) and both suffer from the same fate. There was a recent bios update which added more load line calibration settings, but they didn't seem to work for me (still high vdroop). Although I didn't test these out too much. But to be safe I would say get other relatively cheap an good ones people have on this forum. Edited January 19, 2012 by kjjj11223344

[ZachLW 37]

Trying to overclock or just a fluke?

Bad luck :

[Ben Cap 89]

Bad luck :

Darn..... :/I actually sold a monitor to a guy on Craigslist... Long story short, he likes computers and *highly* recommended Asus. Strange that you had a fried bored....How is the ASRock board holding up? Is overclocking the chip just as easy?

[ZachLW 37]

Darn..... :/I actually sold a monitor to a guy on Craigslist... Long story short, he likes computers and *highly* recommended Asus. Strange that you had a fried bored....How is the ASRock board holding up? Is overclocking the chip just as easy?

Typed in the exact voltage from my Asus board, got the same result! Tried a tad lower, it worked. I'm happy and quite surprised by it.

[larrywell 0]

Well to start, you have the wrong motherboard for overclocking. You want to get a P67 or Z68 chipset board. This allows you to overclock. Also if you are going to overclock the stock cooler isn't going to get you far. I've been there done that LOL In my sig is my first computer I've ever built and I used the stock cooler for a while and quickly learned that it doesn't cut it for moderate to extreme overclocks. Also, I could be wrong about this but getting a Sata III 6gb/s drive isn't really worth it as the HDD won't even really fill the bandwidth of a 3gb/s SATA II connection. So you could save yourself a few bucks getting a 3gb/s driveOne last note, the power supply if you kind find the money, get a modular power supply. I made the mistake and not getting one and even in my Corsair 600T with the EXCELLENT cable management features, it still sucks to find places for the extra cables. Non modular isn't bad it's just sometimes a pain to deal with extra cables. Modular power supplies are more expensive though. Last, I don't live in the UK but I've heard of this place selling computer stuff. http://www.overclockers.co.uk/Hmm, I feel like a jerk based on how I wrote that post. I didn't mean it that way.

Hello, i just read this and note than that desktop is similar to the one i'm gonna buy, it's the desktop i want...http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883227387So with this motherboard i'm not able to OC? can you explain why? i'm not an expert but i wanna buy a good desktop, because i wish to run fsx at decent 25 fps or at least fs9 at full.

[Ben Cap 89]

Typed in the exact voltage from my Asus board, got the same result! Tried a tad lower, it worked. I'm happy and quite surprised by it.

Interesting..... I considered the AsRock boards when I was buying parts for my system.