New rig - MiniPC? Laptop? All-in-One? Advice, please.

[martinlest2 58]

Hi. My main FS9/FSX kit may no longer be state of the art, but it runs both very well. Problem is, I spend long periods abroad for work: the last time I shipped my main PC, the journey shook it half to bits, so I leave it back in the UK these days.

 

Until last month I was using a (10 year-old!) Dell XPS M1730 laptop, which finally died a death (new M/B needed, apparently). So it's time for a replacement. (I have no access to FS9 at all at the moment, which is almost unbearable!!). But as this is just a stopgap for when I am away, I really would rather keep the price within three figures, sterling. Once I return to the UK next year, I'll probably not use it all that much anyway.

 

There are some great machines out there, but I have looked at so many that I am starting to lose focus. (Very few come in at under £1500 by the time I add a good i7 CPU - my main priority - and an nVidia graphics card. I reckon 8GBs RAM is enough, though adding more is inexpensive at the moment).

 

My preferred option is a mini PC (that I can take as hand luggage on the plane, with a monitor carefully wrapped in my suitcase). Another laptop is not going to give me the same performance at these prices.

 

I do not want to run FSX on this new machine, just FS9. I have a huge FS9 installation though, with full FSGenesis mesh, REX clouds, hundreds of aircraft (like PMDG 747), over 1000 scenery.cfg entries (many payware, 'heavy duty' airports): the old Dell couldn't really cope with this of course. I need something that can, with ease..

 

I know I am not going to get the very, very best at under £1000, so, bearing in mind I know the CPU is the main priority (i7-4790k (4.0GHz) probably), I'd appreciate observations and recommendations here, before I shell out what is still quite a bit of cash on the 'wrong' kit!

 

Thanks!

 

Martin