I agree with the others....if you think you may go SLI then yes bump up your PS to 750W or above.

 

As for air coolers....I built my FS buddy a PC for FSX/P3D.  We built it to a budget. They had a Noctua NH-U12S

on for around $40 during a Black Friday sale. So we grabbed it for the build.

 

Trouble is it seems to really spool up to high fan RPM while running FSX at times. I like the fact my Corsair 55 

rarely makes any sound at all while keeping my CPU temps at fantastic low temps.

 

Ken

I'm not familiar with the NH-U12S, but my Noctua NH-D14 is very quiet [and my PC is pretty quiet overall, with 200mm fans]. I've never noticed an increase in fan sounds with P3D2, but I NEVER even hear the fans over the plane's engine sound [i have a decent sound system].

 

But this likely depends on the system. My PC was built for X-Plane 10 and P3D and my i7-4770K is only overclocked to 4.2 MHz, as stability/lower heat was more important to me then gaining 10% more MHz. From what I have seen so far, P3D2 doesn't benefit as much from higher CPU speeds as FSX did. The bigger factor now seems to be the GPU.

 

If you really feel the need to push the OC speed as high as possible, you're better off with a water cooling system. But there's a good comparison HERE on how the Noctua NH-D14 air cooler stacks up against four closed-loop water coolers.

I'm not familiar with the NH-U12S, but my Noctua NH-D14 is very quiet [and my PC is pretty quiet overall, with 200mm fans]. I've never noticed an increase in fan sounds with P3D2, but I NEVER even hear the fans over the plane's engine sound [i have a decent sound system].

I agree the 14 has 2x200mm fans while the 12 has 1x120mm so the 14 should run much quieter.

 

For me another advantage of water cooling was the uncluttered space inside the case.

With water cooling I am bring cooler outside air in then exhausting it out via the big top

fan and the PS fan. So far I am very happy with water cooling. I have a side fan exhausting

air while 2 front fans both running anywhere from 800rpm to 1000rpm bringing in outside air.

 

So far so good. :-)

 

Ken