If you are looking for better performance for the flight sim and you are on a budget - forget the SSD. The benefit you will get in the sim vs the cost/gb isn't worth it. Your system will load faster but that's really about it. Now, if you have $$ to burn and want every little bit of ooomph you can get, an SSD is a cool way to go.

 

A word of caution - you MAY lose a friend over this. *IF* all is well with the build, great but if there's a problem at some point, your friend might not have the time or the expertise to fix it. A company like the PC Specialists mentioned has a reputation to uphold and would be more inclined to work really hard to make sure everything is 100%. I build all my own but I would never build one for a friend - that I wanted to keep as a friend.

 

Just MHO,

 

Vic

 

If you are looking for better performance for the flight sim and you are on a budget - forget the SSD. The benefit you will get in the sim vs the cost/gb isn't worth it. Your system will load faster but that's really about it. Now, if you have $$ to burn and want every little bit of ooomph you can get, an SSD is a cool way to go.

 

A word of caution - you MAY lose a friend over this. *IF* all is well with the build, great but if there's a problem at some point, your friend might not have the time or the expertise to fix it. A company like the PC Specialists mentioned has a reputation to uphold and would be more inclined to work really hard to make sure everything is 100%. I build all my own but I would never build one for a friend - that I wanted to keep as a friend.

 

Just MHO,

 

Vic

 

You're right Vic, I'd love an SSD to get those faster load times but just doesn't seem worth it when I'm already fairly close to budget.

 

I am now in a quandry about whether to go for the 2500K or 3570K however! Money isn't the deciding factor. Reading around it seems the 2500K has better overclocking ability and runs cooler, which would be an advantage for me as I live in a warm apartment anyway.

 

I'm fully confident in my friend's ability - he built my last PC for me and everything's been great, it's just not up to FSX sadly due to the hardware inside it!

All major mobo makers have the UEFI BIOS and software for easy overclocking, not just Asus. I have both a current Z77 UD5H Gigabyte mobo and also a Z68 Asus Maximus and they are both stupid simple to work your way around for setup and overclocking. It's all personal preference, either one makes fine products.

Personally I would go for 16 of RAM even FSX wont use it ... just gives you extra for other programs you may run later.

 

Another thing to be aware of .... wot ever MoBro you get make sure there are enough expansion slots available, nowdays large graphic cards can take the space of 2 slots leaving you not alot left to expand, also add extra USB card, you'll be glad you did at some point.

 

If its a dedicated FSX PC use Nick's tips for setting up FSX and how to tune it (if you dont already) ... google it will find it.

 

Rich

750W is rather overkill for that build, 650W is more than enough and will save you some money.

Also, 1866mhz RAM, why? You wouldn't even notice it over 1333mhz one, so just get 1333 or 1600mhz and save yourself some money.

 

As for the CPU cooler, I'd go for something bigger like Noctua NH C14 (or D14 if the case can fit it), so you have more room to OC in the future.

Thanks all, plenty to mull over. Still considering spending the extra on an i7 processor to get the best I can afford - any thoughts on that? Which one would give the best extra performance over the 2500K/3570K within budget?

 

Santi - the RAM is so cheap it seems silly to go down to 1333 or 1600 to save almost nothing, so thought I may as well get the fastest I could afford. If I do go for 16GB, how would this be arranged? 2 x 8GB sticks or 4 x 4GB? Sorry that's probably a really dumb question.

No you don't have to de-lid, it just offers better cooling with possible higher oc'ing ability. My 3570k is stock with a Corsair water cooler and it runs <77C at 4.79GHz with 95% stability in FSX.

 

Personally I see no need for 16Gigs. FSX only uses 4Gig max.

Spend the extra money on an SSD drive instead, SSD is a very worthy upgrade.

 

 

Spend the extra money on an SSD drive instead, SSD is a very worthy upgrade.

 

Sorry, but if i understand well you get <77C with FSX? It's ok for Prime95 or other stress tests, but with fsx isn't good at all. You will probably get over 90c with IBT or Prime95 which means that overclock is not stable at all. This is why people do de-lidding, you can get below 60c in fsx with de-lidding.

 

 

I'm open to new ideas and suggestions.

For GPU, i suggest you to go for GTX580 if you don't use multiple monitors. I have 560ti and this is not enough in bad weather.

8GB RAM is ok, FSX can't use more than 4, but you can have other proceses/application which can use it, so i would go for 8GB RAM with good timings(ex. 1600MHz CL7).

Cooler - i don't know how good is Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, but i recommend you noctua nh-d14 for high overclock on air. My temps with noctua are max 60c with fsx @4.9GHz

 

Motherboard is ok, Assus can be easier for overclocking in my opinion.

 

PSU is ok, don't go for less than 750

 

HDD is perfect, consider one SSD approx 120GB only for windows.

 

I don't know if fsx will works ok with HD TV, ask someone about that. I think i saw somewhere that is not good combination, but i'm not sure about that.

Sorry, but if i understand well you get <77C with FSX? It's ok for Prime95 or other stress tests, but with fsx isn't good at all. You will probably get over 90c with IBT or Prime95 which means that overclock is not stable at all. This is why people do de-lidding, you can get below 60c in fsx with de-lidding.

 

I could care less what useless benchmarks do, They are not real world running of Windows of what most people do with their computers. As I said, I rarely get any crashes in FSX or other games I play at my current cpu oc settings so that is plenty stable and that's all I care about.

I could care less what useless benchmarks do, They are not real world running of Windows of what most people do with their computers. As I said, I rarely get any crashes in FSX or other games I play at my current cpu oc settings so that is plenty stable and that's all I care about.

 

That's what i'm saying, it's not completely stable, becouse you get crashes. Rarely, but you get. I don't get crashes at all.

I don't want to start a debate or to offense you, i quoted your post becouse in my opinion - that is not good advice for Martin.

 

Best regards

If that is the case, then you should tell Martin to not overclock at all. Overclocking is not black and white. If you want 100% stable and secure, then ideally no overclocking should be done at all. Even at that, FSX is far from perfect even on a stable system with OOM errors and complex addon glitches.

 

I was simply stating what my results are on my cpu so he could make his own judgement on what he wants to do cpu wise.

I think the rig sounds like it's very well made esp. with a z77 chipset.

 

The Asus bios UI is really simple and even nubs like me can manage a simple not too extreme overclock with it. I run my 2500K at 4.2 stable.

100% stable and secure will be only if you don't use your PC at all. Even runing a CPU at standard settings will degrade it, but much slower. For fsx is recommended to overclock, but there is some rules and guides, max safe vcore and temperatures, stress testing - all that in order to get a stable overclock and avoid excessively fast CPU degradation(few months). For that, you must get stable overclock and be within these limits. Excesive voltage, higher temperatures and unstable overclock at 4.2GHz for ex. will kill CPU much faster then stable overclock at 5GHz. People's delidd their ivy bridge chips in order to get lower temps, which means higher or more stable overclock.

Now, there is a some people who don't care about CPU life, other people's are more conservative, or there is some people's who don't know what they are talking about. Becouse of that, we share our opinions in forums like this. What i wrote above is my knowledge and experience so far.

So, Martin, i wrote allready my opinion about hardware, this is about overclocking )

Santi - the RAM is so cheap it seems silly to go down to 1333 or 1600 to save almost nothing, so thought I may as well get the fastest I could afford. If I do go for 16GB, how would this be arranged? 2 x 8GB sticks or 4 x 4GB? Sorry that's probably a really dumb question.

Oh well, if it costs the same then yeah. Though, I wouldn't really advice you to get 16GB since you'll never use more than 6.

Go with the 2700 - easy to clock and cooler. The Noctua mentioned is excellent BUT be sure you have room. I use one to cool my 980X which is clocked to 4.43 and the 2700 runs cooler. I disagree about the PSU - 750w would be minimum - yes a 650W could handle it but then you are running the PSU at max all the time. Better to get a 750 or 850 and have it loafing. It will last longer.

 

unless you do photo editing - 16G ram is a complete waste of $$. No more than 6 will serve you just fine. most people running FSX or P3D are not running a whole lot of other programs in the background that would require 16G ram.

 

Ram speed and timing don't have a big impact on performance BUT they do. BUt you really have to research a bit to make a decision, especially as it relates to budget. A 1600 at CAS7 will be faster than an 1866 at CAS9. Personally I would NOT go below 1600 but you do not need to get the fastest, most expensive to get performance. If you are going to clock your system to the 4.5ghz range, don't go below 1600.

 

Finally, when you DO get to clock your system - use OCCT for the stress test, not Prime95 or Linpak. Run the basic test for an hour and if it passes, it's good to go. OCCT stresses the system the same way that FSX would stress it - meaning it stresses the CPu-GPU-MEMORY systems working together which is where FSX can crash many overclocks that pass P95 with flying colors. Keep your temps no higher than 75C under the OCCT test and you will be in hog heaven.

 

Vic

Do not do the 2700. Go with the Ivy Bridge i5-3570K or the i7-3770K. The prices for the IB has come down too. You can OC them to 4.5Ghz with a 40$ air cooler without any heating issue. With a decent memory 2400 would run FSX 30FPS locked and stutter free with most addons. Particularly if you have a single monitor. Intel is not stupid to put out a processor thats worse than their earlier version. I too was confused in the beginning.. now I am pretty sure. Yes it was disappointing that they (Intel) did not give us the leap in performance with the IB like they did with SB. But its still an improvement. Don't listen to the old wives tales.

 

IB with the Z77 is the way to go. Unless someone gives you a 2700K for less than $100 it doesn't come into play.

 

Manny

 

Do not do the 2700. Go with the Ivy Bridge i5-3570K or the i7-3770K. The prices for the IB has come down too. You can OC them to 4.5Ghz with a 40$ air cooler without any heating issue. With a decent memory 2400 would run FSX 30FPS locked and stutter free with most addons

 

+1

 

An IB OC'ed to 4.5GHZ on air with 2400MHZ RAM will perform about the same as a SB system @ 4.8-5GHZ.