I'm looking to upgrade my current 6 year old PC to one that can run fsx at a reasonable level without breaking the bank. I'm hoping to run fsx with a few addons such as pmdg 737 and REX, however as I have never built a PC with fsx in mind before I was hoping for some guidance/advice.

 

The specification I'm planning is listed below:

 

CPU: Intel i5-3570k

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V

Memory: 8GB Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 1600MHz

Graphics Card: 2GB GTX 650 Ti

PSU: Corsair 650W

 

I was hoping to overclock the CPU, (not to huge clock speeds just a boost) to get the most out of it for the price and was wondering whether investing in water cooling such as the H60 or H100 from Corsair is worth it as I am working towards the top of my budget already.

 

So in essence two questions:

 

What sort of performance could I expect out of this system for fsx with the addons listed?

 

Is it worth purchasing water cooling systems, either single fan such as H60 or dual fan H100?

 

Lastly if anybody has any suggestions on how to save some money on this system without hurting the performance of fsx too badly they would be much appreciated as I am fairly new to building computers for fsx

 

Thank you very very much in advance. :help: :smile:

Looks like a good system to me. You should be able to OC to at least 4.5 or 4.6. I would cool with Noctua. They work great.

Scott

I like your setup. Good performance at reasonable cost. For cooling, I went with the H100, and I am so glad I did. I try to heat up the cpu, and I can't (with FSX). I recommend it. I had the Noctua, but was disappointed in the results with an AMD system, but the airflow in my computer might not have been optimal. Good Luck with your system.

Thanks for the quick response,

 

would the graphics card cope with fsx and some graphics addons (like REX) or would I need a better card to get good fps?

What resolution?

welcome to Avsim

would the graphics card cope with fsx and some graphics addons (like REX) or would I need a better card to get good fps?

It'll work pretty well, Newb. We all (especially old-timers) have to compromise in one area or another, whether weather (sic), graphics, scenery complexity, or traffic... Many places you will be able to hold 30fps, with other spots dropping into the high teens.. Your choices are reasonable, too - the proc is very close to the i5-2600K, and there's lots of posts one vs the other: You won't lose out with either. Then there's the other choice - the 650Ti or the 660Ti.... again - good choices, and any of these combinations will give you similar results. Good luck! ... and Welcome to Avsim!

Thanks for all the advice

 

In response to Dazz, the resolution is 1680x1050

You should be pleased with that setup.

 

I would suggest the 1GB version of the 650Ti and put what you save towards some 2400MHz RAM.

depending upon how hard core you want to OC that system I would go with a Corsair H100i Liquid CPU Cooler, and Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste.

 

As for a Hard Drive, if you want to save some money and get some really good performance I would suggest buying a Seagate Momentus XT 750gb Hybrid HDD (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148940).

Your suggestion of forgoing some GPU performance for RAM performance is interesting but I'm not sure whether the motherboard is compatible. I'll paste the specification detail below from the Asus website:-

 

4 x DIMM, Max. 32GB, DDR3 2400(O.C.)/2200(O.C.)/2133(O.C.)/2000(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1800(O.C.)/1600/1333 MHz Non-ECC, Un-buffered Memory

Dual Channel Memory Architecture

Supports Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (XMP)

* Hyper DIMM support is subject to the physical characteristics of individual CPUs.

* Refer to www.asus.com or user manual for the Memory QVL (Qualified Vendors Lists).

 

Would 2400MHz RAM work on this board?

would help to know what model of board is that exactly, but yeah, it definitely supports 2400 RAM so I'm guessing it's some Z77

 

As for "forgoing some GPU performance" you won't be missing that 1GB of VRAM a single bit. Considering your screen resolution and the 650Ti capabilities, 2GB is completely useless. The 1GB version will do just the same

The board is a P8z77-v LX, and thanks for the tip about the graphics cards