Hey guys,

 

Getting back into flight sim. I am by no means a hardware (or software) guy, but my brother is much more knowledgeable and he has put together a proposed build for my new flight simming computer. Would appreciate any feedback on this rig's capabilities with respect to what I want to do. Right off the bat I will be using FSX and DCS, but might check out X-Plane 10 and other stuff down the road. I would like to use FSX with some photo-real scenery and payware aircraft such as the A2A C182 with TrackIR smoothly.

 

The specs can be found here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GX4Yzy (The build is already a little over the max budget I had in mind)

 

So what do you guys think? Any changes you would make (taking $ into consideration)? Look forward to learning more here. Thanks all.

 

 

This looks like a good system for flight simming.

 

I might spend the extra dollars and get the 4790k cpu.

 

Personally, I like Windows 7, but that may be hard to get, these days.

Looks good.

 

I'd change RAM to 16 (2x8) if you're are looking at using XP10

 

I'd go with Win7 - some users are having issues with addons.

I'd go with a lot more storage. I have a 256D SSD and wish it was a 512G. Looks good otherwise. My FSX is over 90G alone. Bob.

Hey guys,

 

Getting back into flight sim. I am by no means a hardware (or software) guy, but my brother is much more knowledgeable and he has put together a proposed build for my new flight simming computer. Would appreciate any feedback on this rig's capabilities with respect to what I want to do. Right off the bat I will be using FSX and DCS, but might check out X-Plane 10 and other stuff down the road. I would like to use FSX with some photo-real scenery and payware aircraft such as the A2A C182 with TrackIR smoothly.

 

The specs can be found here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/GX4Yzy (The build is already a little over the max budget I had in mind)

 

So what do you guys think? Any changes you would make (taking $ into consideration)? Look forward to learning more here. Thanks all.

 

Hello!

 

The CPU is fine - I don't know if you plan on overclocking, if you do, I'd go with a Corsair water cooling solution.  

 

This motherboard is great, but might not be the top choice for extreme overclocking (still absolutely great for anything reasonable, great quality for the price).  

 

I would definitely add a second HDD, preferably a WD Black series.  For more budget-minded customers, I'm a big fan of the WD Black² DualDrive 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD  which is a great way to have your OS on a SSD and still 1TB for other stuff.  Unless you're a big fan of extreme photoscenery, right now, FSX and P3D don't really benefit from being on a SSD - besides, 256GB fills up very, very quickly.

 

For FSX/P3D, your RAM is fine, but I'd definitely upgrade to 16GB+ for X-Plane, and if you do any kind of image/video processing.

 

You would benefit from Windows 7 if you can get it - and it will be upgradable to Windows 10 in time.

 

Finally, I'm a big fan of the 900 series and the 970 you picked is a great one.

 

Overall, great system.  Don't hesitate if you have any questions, and welcome back in the hobby!

If you start FS just once for the day I agree about HDD vs SSD.

 

Myself being a tester, I'm frequently opening and closing FS. The time difference is worth it for me. Many addons on my old 1 TB spinpoint HDD: 4 min load, same on new 500GB 840 Evo: 45 sec

 

It's a luxury item no doubt but I'd buy one again.

If you start FS just once for the day I agree about HDD vs SSD.

 

Myself being a tester, I'm frequently opening and closing FS. The time difference is worth it for me. Many addons on my old 1 TB spinpoint HDD: 4 min load, same on new 500GB 840 Evo: 45 sec

 

It's a luxury item no doubt but I'd buy one again.

 

I figured since the OP is already maxing his budget, I'd suggest the cheaper option.  At the amount of stuff there is in my P3D folder (120GB and counting), I can't justify a 250GB SSD just for that purpose right now.  I've done it for customers, and will probably end up doing it eventually, though.  For a tester, it sure sounds reasonable.

I'd up the RAM a little and consider 8GB 1866MHz, 2133MHz or 2400MHz (and as Ryan said 16MB for X-Plane 10). Bear in mind that 2400 and many 2133 modules have XMP profiles setting a voltage greater than the Haswell standard of 1.5V, typically 1.65V (with Haswell the memory controller is onboard the CPU).

Well it took me a while to finally pull the trigger, but I did. The total came out to quite a bit more than I planned on spending after splurging on a few items (CPU & SSD) and taxes :o . Thanks everyone for your input. Looks like I'll probably give P3D a try, and one of the A2A aircraft. Can't wait to start preparing for my instrument rating on this rig! 

 

Final build:

 

Intel Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Processor 4.0GHz 5.0GT/s 8MB LGA 1150 CPU

Noctua NH-U12 S for Intel LGA 2011,1156,1155,1150 and AMD AM2/AM2+/AM3/3+,FM1/2 Sockets, U Type, 5 Heatpipe,120mm CPU Cooler Cooling

ASUS Z97-A ATX DDR3 2600 LGA 1150 Motherboards Z97-A

Crucial BX100 500GB 2.5 inch SATA3 Internal Solid State Drive

Asus NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 4GB GDDR5 2DVI/HDMI/DisplayPort PCI-Express Video Card

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory

Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial-ATA Internal OEM Optical Drive DRW-24B1ST (Black)

TP-LINK TL-WDN3800 Dual Band Wireless N600 PCI Express Adapter, 2.4GHz 300Mbps/5Ghz 300Mbps

Seasonic SSR-650RM 650W 80 PLUS Gold ATX12V/EPS12V Power Supply

Fractal Design Define R5 No Power Supply ATX Mid Tower (Black)

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64bit

Looks great!