Hi there!

 

I know there are loads of topics with questions about new dedicated FSX systems, but as the title says, I just can't see the forest for the trees anymore. I might've done to much research for a new system! :blink: I am a longtime FSX user but currently don't have a system that's good enough. To the point. Currently, I am a student-pilot (ATPL) in the Netherlands, and in need of a good system that will keep me current after I finish school in 5 months from now, as there aren't many job opportunities here in Europe.

 

I'm mostly thinking about flying the PMDG 737NGX with AS2012 / UTX / REX / GEX and some Aerosoft (or other developers) airports. I want/need to achieve at least 25/30 FPS in virtual cockpit mode for maintaining the motion of flying at all times.

 

My hardware store I usually go to, provided me a set-up as below: (I gave him a list of specs I was looking into; i72600k, GTX660ti P8P67).

• i7 3770K 3,5Ghz / BOX
  
• Asus P8P67 Deluxe (Rev.3)
  
• 16 GB DDR3/1600 Corsair Vengeance CL10
  
• Asus GTX660-TI DC2-2GD5
  
• 120GB SSD Intel 520 Series
  
• CoolerMaster Silent Pro M II 850W ATX
  

It cost quite alot and my budget doesn't really allow me to upgrade the above specs any further. Is there anyone of you that can give me some advice about what to choose? Or any other recommendations? This would be very, very much appreciated!

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Robin

Thats a very good and capable spec. Hate to add one more expense, however, that 120GB SSD is only going to be big enough for Windows plus a few utilities. You will run out of space very quickly putting FSX on there.

 

FSX should be on a separate HD from the operating system whenever possible.

 

In order not to break the bank you might consider a 1TB hard drive. They are quite inexpensive. Get a good one though such as Western Digital Black version. Nice if you can afford a 480-500GB SSD but that's going to be quite a bit more $.

Good system, but a few additions:

 

Go for an Asus P8Z77-V (or V-Pro or V-Deluxe, depends on your budget). The Z77 boards don't have the double boot bug and might be more capable of overclocking. More expensive boards will also allow you to overclock with a lower VCore because the more expensive boards have got an 8 phase VRM design instead of the usual 4.

 

If I was you, I would put two OCZ Vector 128GB SSD's inside there, forget the Intel one. One dedicated to OS, and the other to FSX. Lastly, you could optionally add an extra hard drive for storage.

 

Remember to overclock to at least 4.5 GHz and then you are going to be very happy. Just watch some tutorials on YouTube, but forget about it for now. When you get to it, just come back to this forum and ask. Do not be afraid to damage your system. There are a few limits you should not exceed and then there isn't much that can go wrong.

 

Because you are Dutch - like me - this is a very useful site for hardware: nl.hardware.info

 

Good luck!

I agree with Arjen that an OCZ SSD is a better choice than the Intel but the reason I suggested a conventional HD for FSX is purely budget. I have an OCZ 480 SSD for FSX only and its already half full. Additionally a SSD drive should not be pushed beyond 80% capacity.

With a 1TB HD you can go nuts with FSX plus add your extra files, storage, etc and then some day when you can afford it, add the bigger SSD and move FSX onto it using available software like Acronis or Paragon. Its very easy to do.

Thanks for the replies! Just a few more questions..

• What would be the benefit of putting the OS on a SSD and not on a regular HDD?
  
• I'm not sure whether to build the PC myself or to have my local hardware store build it for me. Never build a PC myself but it doesn't seem to be very difficult. Any advise here? (The main reason I prefer to have my hardware store built it for my, I can always go there for advice if anything is wrong, broken etc.)
  
• Do I need a separate cooler to keep the temperatures down when overclocked?
  

Thanks.

Intel SSD's are fine more reliable than OZC. At least dont spend any extra money to buy "Higher price" brands.

We all got along fine with HDD's until SSD's came along. In the never ending quest to speed up and smoothen out FSX this has become the latest "must have". If you do everything on HDD's its hard to say what you'd be giving up. Certainly nothing in Frame Rates but likely a small but perceptible benefit in smoothness as file access and reading is much quicker on an SSD.

If you have a strict budget then I'd be spending it on the best MB, CPU and GPU.

Building your first pc is much easier than it used to be. Ive built at least 30 of them over the years and now with so many instruction based videos, etc its very easy and very rewarding.

Either way I would always put Win7 on a small HD/SSD and FSX on a separate HD/SSD.

If you're on a budget there is no reason to get an i7 processor, FSX really doesn't make use of hyperthreading so you'll see very little benefit of an i7 over an i5 and the difference in price would probably enable you to afford upgrading your other components.

 

As mentioned a P8z77 board would be a much better choice than the p8p67.

 

Again as mentioned a 120GB HDD isn't going to cut it if you are going to use your PC for anything but FSX, you really need 256, check out the Samsung 830 (not 840) drives, they were among the first SSDs to be considered reliable enough to be fitted as OEM parts. Personally I see no performance benefit to running FSX on a seperate mechanical drive over your single solid state drive, I'd like to see evidence to the contrary.

 

You don't mention an aftermarket cooler, the stock intel one can just about be relied on to keep the CPU ruuning at stock temps, if you want to overclock you need to be looking at an aftermarket cooler.

An i5-3570K will help save a little, if you don't need the Hyperthreading(HT) capability. It will easily OC durn near as high as the 3770K. Top shelf CPU cooling is a must.

The ASUS P8Z77-V has plenty of Power Phases for a great overclock without the added expense of the "Bells and Whistles" motherboards.

Put your CPU savings toward fast, fast, RAM. 8GB is plenty. Did I say Fast?!!

 

A 120-128GB SSD for Windows and FSX is fine. The only reason for a seperate FSX drive is when using spinners. Then regular Defrags(Not SSD) are needed to keep FSX at it's best.

Win 7 Pro and FSXA only took up 38GB+ total in their default configs on my old rig's 128GB SSD. Put all of your other apps and goodies on the storage spinner.

I tested Win 7 Pro on that 128GB SSD and FSX on the spinner(WD 1TB Black), Vice Versa, and both on the SSD. Both on the SSD gave me the best performance. No doubt in my Military Mind.

The SSD did not increase FPS per se, but, the added smoothness, of the fast texture loading, allowed me to add a little more eyecandy in increments before microstutters began to appear again.

Put your payware and your most important add-ons on the SSD also. They will appreciate the oomph...

Put your less important stuff on a spinner, and create a "Hanger" folder for unused aircraft there too. It takes a little more work, managing space, vs more money for a larger SSD.

 

My Samsung 830 @533MB/s Read, 342 MB/s Write is just slightly slower in the Read dept than my 840 @553/MB/s, 533 MB/s Write.

It lags by 190MB/s in the Write dept, but, FSX is 99.9% Read when running.

Testing showed very little performance difference with successively faster Drives. I only gained 1 FPS ave(30 tests) with FSX on my RAMDisk @ 3.86GB/s Read-3.62GB/s Write over the 840.

The RAMDisk, itself, at 6+ times faster than the Samsung 840 512GB, was an expensive experiment. lol! 64GB of RAM ain't cheap!

 

The GTX 660 Ti will be plenty of card for a single Hi-Res(1920x1200/108) monitor.

 

Good Luck...Don

You don't mention an aftermarket cooler, the stock intel one can just about be relied on to keep the CPU ruuning at stock temps, if you want to overclock you need to be looking at an aftermarket cooler.

 

I asked this question before, if I needed separate cooling. Will something like the Noctua DH-14 be sufficient to keep cool temperatures when overclocked?

 

Put your CPU savings toward fast, fast, RAM. 8GB is plenty. Did I say Fast?!!

 

Do you mean I should not get the '1600' but higher? What would you recommend? And what's the benefit?

I asked this question before, if I needed separate cooling. Will something like the Noctua DH-14 be sufficient to keep cool temperatures when overclocked?

 

The Noctua NH-D14 is one of the better air coolers so yes it will be sufficient, you will need to ensure your RAM will fit under the cooler so any that says it is "low profile" should be OK. You will struggle to get low profile RAM running faster than 1600 though, to be honest you'll probably not notice the difference.

 

 

 

 

Remember to overclock to at least 4.5 GHz and then you are going to be very happy. Just watch some tutorials on YouTube

 

I did some more research about overclocking this processor using the auto-tune from Asus as seen in

. This looks very promising to overclock to around 4.4 / 4.5 GHz without any manual settings from the BIOS. I have never overclocked anything before so this would be a great outcome for me personal. They also discuss the 'TPU' switch which will set your CPU to an instant 4.2 GHz. Is it possible to use your auto-tune from this set-up or do you leave the switch 'off' and then use the auto-tune program? Do you have any experience with this type of overclocking?

 

I'm not sure whether to go for 8 GB of RAM or for the 16 GBs. And if I would buy the 16 GB, do I need 2 x 8 or 4 x 4?

 

If I was you, I would put two OCZ Vector 128GB SSD's inside there, forget the Intel one. One dedicated to OS, and the other to FSX. Lastly, you could optionally add an extra hard drive for storage.

 

If my budget doesn't allow to buy 2 SSD's in the end, should I put the OS on a regular HDD and FSX on the SSD? I have 2 Western Digital external drives in total 3 TB so for storage I do have plenty space available.

 

Thanks.