Just been browsing the excellent reviews on the Z87 on Amazon, check it out.  You might get some wicked deals on there on Black Friday !

 

Going to get this and a 4770k myself for my new build. My existing rig is fine but I need another for my new man cave !

I forgot to mention the PSU. If you put a good GTX in you will need something like a 750W PSU to give you some headroom.  Make sure it's modular for a neat & tidy build.

  The best upgrade you could possibly do right now would go the SSD route. You will be amazed at the difference. Your FSX is safe on your HD, you dont need fancy software to back it up, just copy & paste the entire folder to an external drive and C & P it back onto the new SSD when its installed. Or just re install your existing HD, C & P to the new SSD and remove your old drive, simple ! 

 

Do you mean copy and paste to an extrernal drive and then Copy and paste back to the HD when I'm done? But copy and pasting only creates a copy of the programs files, not the actual program moves.

If you're going to re use your old HD then you don't need to do anything, just connect it to the new MOBO. This will work fine if its a SATA drive but you wont be taking advantage of the SATA 6 capability of the board.  If you fit a new SATA 6 SSD just C & P the entire FSX folder from the old drive to the new. Then either leave the old drive in place and use as a back up drive or remove it in case the system goes up in smoke !  The copy that you pasted to the new drive will function exactly the same as the original FSX.  When you are set up and ready to go, fire up FSX and load any default plane and fly around for a few minutes, land and close FSX, re start your system, doing this will allow FSX to automatically create the files it needs in the OS to work properly. The only problem with creating a mirror image this way is you also C & P any bugs, damaged or corrupt files in your existing FSX folder to the new drive, same for any back up programme.

 

Option 2 is to re - instal a fresh and clean FSX on the new drive, then C & P the add ons you want back one by one, from the old drive, testing as you go and immediately delete any add on that causes a issue.  This will consume your weekend but it is well worth investing the time. You will end up with with a clean and stable FSX.  Any faulty add ons you deleted can be replaced by fresh ones from your downloads or discs.  This is the way I did it last year and I am so glad I had the patience to do it this way, for the first time ever, my FSX now has a WOW factor and for the first time in years, I can enjoy FSX to the full. 

 

When you are all finished and happy with eveything,  delete your old FSX folder off the old drive and C & P your new & clean FSX from the new drive to the old.  Now you have a clean & fresh back up to fall back on if your working copy tanks.

 

Finaly, remember that you will never get FSX to run at 100%.  FSX is an unfinished product and never will be, not by Microsoft anyway.