Greetings all,

 

I'm very early in the process, but I'm thinking of buying a new PC. The last few I've purchased have been directly from the well known PC companies. I've heard about independent companies who put PCs together for you. Any suggestions as to which of these companies are the best? I'm in the USA, so I would guess it's better to buy from a US-based company.

 

Also, I'm looking for something that will run FSX with a decent to good frame rate. My add-ons are the PMDG planes (NGX, MD11, and eventually the 777). I also use Active Sky for weather. What type of components would you recommend?  I'm looking for something that won't break the bank (low $1000s, if possible, not including a monitor).

 

Appreciate your help.

I would strongly recommend that you build your own. It is as easy to put together as Lego and you will get a lot more bang for your buck. You should wait for the new Intel 4th gen core processor code named Haswell.(Released within the next 6 weeks) I would recommend that you buy the appropriate Motherboard that gives the best overclocking options for this CPU and the fasted 8 to 16 gigs of RAM you can afford and a single top of the line Nvidia card although at a $1000 a pop I would not buy GTX titan. Get a used GTX 580 as cheap as you can first with a mind to replacing it latter if it cannot keep up with the haswell.

 Get the rest of the parts used: Big well ventilated case with lots of fans pushing loads of air through, 800 to 1000w PSU. Koolance or similar water cooling system,(Only water cool CPU) If you can live without SSD's get some used raptors forget about RAID.

 

Use the forums, Overclocking and Fight Sim alike, Only use Windows 7 64 bit. Use NickN guide to installing FSX and addons over at SIMFORUM

 

Take you time and do your homework and ask the right communities for help.

Its a lot of work but it is very rewarding if you do it right and you always have your current system to fly with until the new one is done.

 

I have a feeling if the next gen Hardware this time around will mark the coming of age of FSX.

I second that build your own system check youtube for how to vids