I think that you now should go out and buy something, and make your own experience with the hardware you get. If you get one 1 TB HDD for everything including OS, just make sure to install FSX in the root of that drive.

Personally I would rather have no FSX than compromising on AA, which I think that a 580 would handle better than a 660. But this is just my opinion.

 

BR

Anders

Yup, I believe my set up has been finalized!

 

I will give you guys an update on the performance of my FSX setup as soon as I have it running and tuned...Although this will be in 2-3 weeks.

 

Thank you everyone for the help!

Rather have good CPU above all else same with mobo a gpu is secondary with fsx. 580 gtx used is a waste of money with limited budget as higher power suppy is needed to run it. Upgrading powersupply is required just for gpu cards like the 580 gtx that cost more money.

I'm 100% with SAAB340.

The I5 + 660 combo is as good as it gets price/performance wise.

 

Also get 2400MHz RAM if you can find it for this price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231585

Just a few more bucks than the 1600MHz and should provide a 5 - 10% performance boost (Think some 300MHz in CPU clock speed for 10 extra bucks)

 

I can't see the parts list to comment on de PSU or CPU cooler.

 

On the SSD vs HDD, if you're already stretching your budget, just pass on the SSD for now, but partition your drive in preparation like this:

 

250GB partition for OS, FSX and other programs, and frequently used data making sure the SATA controller is set to AHCI in the BIOS prior to installing Windows

The rest for mass storage.

 

Then you can easily migrate the 250GB partition to a 250GB SSD once you can afford it. Preferably get this partition properly aligned in the HDD when you create it so that you don't need to do any extra steps once you clone it to the SSD.

 

Honestly, an SSD just for the OS is a waste. And 250GB can go a long way with the OS, FSX + plenty addons + other programs if you are a bit organised and follow some basic steps like disabling Hibernation (saves a few GB), moving the page file to another drive, moving the documents folders to another drive (or have two of them, one in the SSD with the most frequently used data, another one in the HDD with the rest), move the recycle bin to the HDD and just tidying up the drive every once in a while deleting temp files, old restore points, crash dumps...

I don't think it's a waste at all... I agree a 256 for FSX and windows would be better but for someone like me who turns PC on and off a lot the decreased load times from the OS on SSD are great!

Hi,

 

Well, in my book nothing is secondary in an FSX rig. If you intend to overclock the CPU (which the OP wants to), you should get a motherboard with a proper VRM section with an 8-phase design or better. And then don´t forget a proper PSU when OC´ing..

If you intend to minimize shimmering trees, fences etc, and using HD REX-clouds and other modern High End addon´s (which the OP also wants), you need a proper GPU to deal with that.

 

But I agree with you, that if you have no intentions to OC, run default clouds, and are less critical about shimmering trees, fences, straight lines etc., then any MB or GPU would be fine, and building a rig for under 800 USD should be easily possible.

 

Best Regards,

Anders

 

 

 

Will running a 1TB 7200 hard drive slow my system down?

Well, it depends on how you personally classify slow it down. Your system will feel like any other PC with a regular HDD. I personally want to rip my hair out many times when I have to deal with PCs with the OS on an HDD nowdays as I've since long got used to the snappy feel from SSDs.

 

As far as FSX is concerned it will not affect your FPS. SSD or HDD doesnt matter, you'll still get the same average FPS. There were really slow HDDs around (compared to the HDDs of today) when FSX was made many, many years ago now and it had to cope with that.

 

What SSDs do apart from significantly reduce the time it takes to load a flight is that they eliminate stutters that are caused by HDDs. In particular if you have both FSX and the OS on the same HDD. There will be times when FSX will stutter for a fraction of a second while it's waiting for a small file to be red off your harddrive. A stutter that would'nt happen with an SSD.

 

Not having an SSD will also cause textures to load slower. In particular ground textures. Normally this is only a problem if you are into photo scenery and as I understand it you're not. (If you were I'd have to reccomend the i7 as well and it would cost even more=)

 

So going HDD instead of SSD will give you a lot longer to load a flight, and more stutters in FSX. But you will get a lot more space for the same price.

 

Your new system, even with one single 7200rpm HDD in it, will be miles better than the laptop you've been using.

 

Best of luck aquiring the parts and building the system. You'll really enjoy when you can start flying on it.

Thank you everyone for the comments!

Since my plan is to run the i5 + GTX660, what would you say is a good benchmark setting to try FSX on? I understand that I will be tweaking the GPU from the GPU settings itself, but for the main FSX settings (things like level of detail radius, mesh complexity/resolution, texture resolution, etc), are there any good benchmarks to start tweaking from?