Hi, I am looking for some advice on my first FSX PC build. I am under a strict budget of £600. Here are my main specs:

 

CPU: Intel i3 4340 @3.6Ghz

GPU: Nvidia GTX 750 1GB 

RAM: 8GB 

 

I'm planning on running FSX with ASN and PMDG 777 at 30fps. I do not plan on using any payware scenery but may use some freeware HD textures for clouds/sky etc.

 

I understand that FSX is quite CPU intensive and it doesn't seem to take advantage of extra cores, so is there any significant benefit of upgrading to an i5 if i don't plan on overclocking? Also, is my graphics card sufficient for my demands and should i consider upgrading to the 750Ti or equivalent cards?

 

Any advice and opinions will be appreciated, thank you.

This is the best I could do with your price point.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£163.90 @ Amazon UK) 

Motherboard:  Asus Z87-Plus ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£98.00 @ Amazon UK) 

Memory:  Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£56.99 @ Aria PC) 

Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£35.94 @ Aria PC) 

Video Card:  MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card  (£168.91 @ Scan.co.uk) 

Case:  Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case  (£39.95 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply:  Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£52.27 @ Amazon UK) 

Optical Drive:  LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer  (£13.54 @ Amazon UK) 

Operating System:  Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)  (£69.65 @ CCL Computers) 

Total: £699.15

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-25 16:35 BST+0100)

 

You do not want to drop much lower in terms of parts. Anything lower and you will pay dearly in performance for the little bit of cost savings. If I were you, I would wait for a little bit longer and save up enough to buy a rock solid build in which you will have no regrets.

ok, thanks for your help. Better get saving then...

 

ok, thanks for your help. Better get saving then...

Also wait till devils canyon CPU's are released they will be alot better for overclocking I'd get the I5-4690k 

Just in case I win the lottery

 

I priced a custom build based on Nicks FSX Bible for the best FSX performance 

 

CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4930K Six-Core

VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card EVGA Superclocked

MEMORY: 32GB (8GBx4) DDR3/2133MHz Quad Channel Memory Corsair Vengeance 

HDD: 1TB Samsung 840 EVO Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 540MB/s Read & 520MB/s Write

HDD2: 500GB Gaming Western Digital VelociRaptor 10,000RPM SATA-III 

 LG 16X Internal Blu-ray Burner, BD-RE, DVD+RW Combo Driv

MEMORY: 32GB (8GBx4) DDR3/2133MHz Quad Channel Memory Corsair Vengeance 

MOTHERBOARD: ASUS Sabertooth X79 ATX w/ TUF Armor, SSD Caching, Intel GbLAN, 3 Gen3 PCIe x16, 2 PCIe x1, 1 PCI 

SOUND: Creative Sound Blaster ZX 5.1 Channels 24-bit 

Vigor iSURF II Hard Disk Drive Cooling System

 RAIDMAX Scorpio V Mid-Tower Gaming Case 

POWERSUPPLY: 1,200 Watts - Corsair AXi AX1200i 1200W Digital 80 PLUS Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Aerocool V12XT Dual Bay Touch Screen Fan Control

 

 the total cost is $3970.00 US 

I'm slowly (very slowly) Saving penny's & buying piece by piece for a custom build for P3D 2.2

Here,s my list ive compiled any feedback on the items im choosing will be much appreciated, I think ive done enough research on good pc,s for flight sims , but maybe some have experienced good or bad things with the list of hardware im looking at, once againg cheers for ya feedback.

 

Thermaltake Large Gaming Case.

 

Thermaltake 1200w PSU

 

Asus Maximus VI extreme motherboard

 

G.Skill RipjawsX 16GB RAM (4x4GB) DDR3 2400MHz

 

I7 4790K     (When Released)

 

1TB Samsung 840 EVO Series SATA-III 6.0Gb/s SSD - 540MB/s Read & 520MB/s Write (for P3D)

 

Western Digital VelociRaptor 10,000RPM SATA-III   (For Win 7)

 

Water Cooling for the CPU & GPU,  Air for Board & Hdd,s

 

GPU:  ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II OC 4GB

 

 

Riche.

Well there's three different guys posting their proposed system specs lol

 

Nick N - he's cool and all but he must assume everyone is just loaded with cash.

 

P3D is different animal than FSX - it really can use video ram unlike FSX which never seems to care.

 

For p3D/XP10 - I suggest 16 GB ram min, video card with 4gb VRAM / fast CPU at least i5 and overclocking.

 

For FSX 8 GB ram with 2gb VRAM is fine. But again fast CPU recommended.

 

I recently got p3d and am not impressed. In some situations I lose about 75% of my fps.(compared to FSX)... Obviously p3d looks a bit better but the fxaa is messed up and makes gauges blurry at least on my rig.

 

P.S. A big PSU is a total waste - my current rig (see sidebar) used 380w at peak when measured with kill a watt (not including monitor or printer).

 

Unless you intend to run SLI or tons of SATA devices and or cold cathode lighting 650w is plenty for the typical high end FS PC.

Ok, I've taken onboard some of the advice and I realise that at my price point I wont be able to build a perfect rig for FSX. However, the reality is that I cant afford £600+ on a computer right now. I've tried to make a compromise with the following build:

 

 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/V3nPK8

 

what do you think?

No to the video card and no to the motherboard.

 

Any of the 50 series 550/650/750 are like the budget best buy (retail store) cards.... They're low end and even the 750 Ti isn't great. Can you find an older gtx 660 or 660 ti?

 

The motherboard won't allow overclocking (at least not simple overclocking). Try for a Z87/Z77

Ok, the gtx 660 seems to be reasonable. I am not interested in overclocking, I only put in the 3570k because it was for some reason the cheapest i5 processor at the time. Also, will 'downgrading' to an i3 4360 at 3.7Ghz yield a significant drop in performance? Is there any real difference between dual core and quad core for fsx?

I can't say - not many have i3 cpu's.

 

But dual core in theory would be ok .... Especially if you're not overclocking and your CPU goes to 3.7ghz

Overclocking is a good thing some mobo's can do auto overclocking. If you dont want to get every last bit of mhz out of a chip they work well and net good performance gains while keeping the CPU safe. If you decide to OC I'd be happy to help.

If I can find a good deal, I will definitely buy a k-series processor. However, I do not plan on serious overclocking, auto overclocking features like OC Genie seem sufficient to me. So just to confirm, a non-k series cpu like the i3 4360 is absolutely impossible to overclock and that even if I consider the remote possibility of overclocking I should buy a 'k' series?

 

Thanks for your help

If I can find a good deal, I will definitely buy a k-series processor. However, I do not plan on serious overclocking, auto overclocking features like OC Genie seem sufficient to me. So just to confirm, a non-k series cpu like the i3 4360 is absolutely impossible to overclock and that even if I consider the remote possibility of overclocking I should buy a 'k' series?

 

Thanks for your help

You can't overclock a non-k processor.

You can't overclock a non-k processor.

Thats wrong. You are able to over clock a non k processor via the base clock.However, that also raises the frequency for everything else on the mono, like the etc. and if your not a highly experienced over clocker you can easily damage all your pc components. Therefore its highly recommended to take Z-boards with a k-processor if you plan to over clock, because then you simply have to raise the multiplicator which involves a much lower risk