Hi there,

 

I'm planning a new rig for pretty soon to get much better performance for FSX.

 

So here is the hardware I chose :

CPU : Core i5-3570k (as far as I understood HT is not really doing much for FSX, and it overclocks quite well)

Memory : 8GB of GSKILL 1600Mhz

SSD : Crucial M4 128GB (for FSX)

Graphic Card : GeForce GTX 680 (I know it wont do so much in FSX perf but I'm still playing other games and I want a rig that will last a few years sio I rather invest than change every year)

Cooler : I've thought of a Cooler Master 212 Evo

 

So the main question that is still a bit bothering is the mother board choice, that would be a card which is not to difficult to handle in terms of making overclocking easily. I had thought of a MSI Z77A-G45 but I just found out that it do not have any PCI Slot. So that is why I can't use this one though I've seen with the hardware I chose above it should be doing great in overclocking.

 

I know some will ask why am I bothering with the need of a PCI Slot, so just a quick explanation I'm using a Soudblaster X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card which has simply no equivalent in PCI Express, as I have a full front bay with all the connectics, and mainly digitial input, and it does all the good work for decoding Dolby/Dts and then going through my old but still perfectly working 5.1 THX sound system. SO I really cannot lose all of that.

 

I've made a bit of reasearch and found MBs that have what I need but it is a bit difficult to make a decision, so I thought I'd ask here as some might have had experience with several MBs ;)

I have the ASRock Extreme4 and its great (Disclaimer, I have had it for 5 days, but it OCs like a pro!). It has no PCI but the Extreme6 does and other than the addition PCI and some other ports its the same as the Extreme4.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157295

Memory : 8GB of GSKILL 1600Mhz

 

Go for some 2400MHZ instead. It will give you about 10% better performance when compared to a system with 1600MHZ RAM.

okay thanks to both of you for your answer :)

 

Though it was hard I managed earlier to get a good comparison chart for 34 Z77 mainboards, that has amongst many other informations the numer of PCI ports, which helped me making a decision.

In the end I'm going for a Gigabyte Z77X-GD5H, as it has the options I needed, it overclocks quite well, and also from what I see it is the best board in terms of voltage stability for the CPU (no ripple) according to an anandtech review, so it should be doing very well.

 

No I'll get to see the best price I can get here in France though various retailers and get my new hardware hopefully sooon enough.

 

Thanks a lot :)

Asus P8Z77-V has two PCI Slots

 

I have the 212 cooler and I am not happy. if you are going to be OCing, it lets you down at the high end of the CPU OC when you need cooling the most.

 

I am looking for an alternate myself.

 

The D14 cooler is too huge. I am fearful of the water cooling block that it would start leaking. Ha Ha!

 

Manny