Building a pc for a friend - feedback please

[Andreas Stangenes 1,628]

Hey guys and girls! I'm in the process of recommending parts for a friend of mine who wants a new flight sim pc. He is not on unlimited funds, so I'm trying to make this as good as possible without ruining him. I found the gfx card to be the most tricky. The 980 havent come down in price yet, and so we are left with the 1070 in the same price range. The 1080 are a bit too high to be affordable.

 

Please take a look at this list and tell me what you think. Am I missing something obvious, or do you have any other advice for us I would be truly grateful

 

https://www.komplett.no/wishlists/7d0c2a89-8dd3-46c3-be59-663cfe3fa32f

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

If budget is an issue, a GTX970 could be a reasonable option..

[Charlatan 68]

Change the RAM for 3000mhz+ stuff.  Shouldn't be much more

[johnman 7]

I Question Your Mother Board, I have had Catastrophic Failure with MSI !!, I recommend, Biostar, Asus, or Intel, Never had a Failure !! I Also Recommend Battery Backup for Longevity. Let us know how You make out. Johnman  B) 

[kolaf 2]

For reference, this is what I ordered a few weeks ago:

 

https://www.komplett.no/wishlists/70547e42-17cd-4cdd-b252-a351d0c625b3

 

(Or at least close to it, 6700k instead of 6700). I have been running it for about a week and I am quite satisfied. Just overclocked it to 4.5 yesterday without issue, running between 60 and 70° with prime95.

 

I have still to find the correct settings balance since still seem to be more CPU bound than I expected.

[martin-w 3,234]

I Question Your Mother Board, I have had Catastrophic Failure with MSI !!, I recommend, Biostar, Asus, or Intel, Never had a Failure !! I Also Recommend Battery Backup for Longevity. Let us know how You make out. Johnman  B)

You having catastrophic failure is a sample size of just one though. Plenty of other manufacturers boards have failed to. Not sure we should recommend against MSI on that basis to be honest.

 

I do favour Asus, but no MB manufacturer is perfect.

[Sethos 4,266]

If budget is an issue, a GTX970 could be a reasonable option..

 

For flight simulation, I'd say no. Especially if you start working with higher quality terrain and textures that taxes the VRAM, then the 970 is the absolute worst option, due to only being 4GB and not even having the full 4GB available. As soon as you hit 3.5GB, your framerate will drop like a rock.

[vortex681 806]

For flight simulation, I'd say no. Especially if you start working with higher quality terrain and textures that taxes the VRAM, then the 970 is the absolute worst option, due to only being 4GB and not even having the full 4GB available. As soon as you hit 3.5GB, your framerate will drop like a rock.

Lots of people, me included, would disagree with your assessment of the 970. I run FSX with add-ons from A2A, Realair, Orbx, REX and ASN (amongst many others) at 2560x1440 and my 970 card has no problems. It might be a different matter at 4k but I have no plans to go in that direction. Definitely not "the absolute worst option" by any stretch of the imagination. I have other games which put much more of a load on the GPU and the 970 runs them at high settings with relative ease. It's a great card and very good value for money and is likely to become more so as the new Pascal cards find their way to the market.

[Sethos 4,266]

Lots of people, me included, would disagree with your assessment of the 970. I run FSX with add-ons from A2A, Realair, Orbx, REX and ASN (amongst many others) at 2160x1440 and my 970 card has no problems. It might be a different matter at 4k but I have no plans to go in that direction. Definitely not "the absolute worst option" by any stretch of the imagination. I have other games which put much more of a load on the GPU and the 970 runs them at high settings with relative ease. It's a great card and very good value for money and is likely to become more so as the new Pascal cards find their way to the market.

 

And that's fine that it has served you well but we're in an era where 3.5GB of VRAM can be exhausted in no time flat. Buying one of the 'newer' cards with the least amount of VRAM is factually the worst decision you could make, when you are spoiled for choice. It limits you in so many ways. I've gone through 4-5GBs of VRAM on my card on several occasions, both in scenery modded flight simulators and other titles as well. So if we put aside what we may feel for hardware and look at it from a logical, rational approach, the 970 isn't a very good choice in any regard. If you want value, the new RX480 beats it in price, performance and has over twice the VRAM.

 

So if you're buying a new computer, today, the 970 makes no sense unless you are practically handed the card for free.

[johnman 7]

My 30 years Building Computers, and dealing with people that Build Computers, I recommend, Biostar, Asus, or Intel. - Johnman  B) 

[vortex681 806]

And that's fine that it has served you well but we're in an era where 3.5GB of VRAM can be exhausted in no time flat. Buying one of the 'newer' cards with the least amount of VRAM is factually the worst decision you could make, when you are spoiled for choice. It limits you in so many ways. I've gone through 4-5GBs of VRAM on my card on several occasions, both in scenery modded flight simulators and other titles as well. So if we put aside what we may feel for hardware and look at it from a logical, rational approach, the 970 isn't a very good choice in any regard. If you want value, the new RX480 beats it in price, performance and has over twice the VRAM.

 

So if you're buying a new computer, today, the 970 makes no sense unless you are practically handed the card for free.

 

I agree that the RX 480 looks like a good card at a good price. I wasn't saying that the OP should buy a 970, just that it's far from being "the absolute worst option" for FSX. If I was buying a new card now, I would definitely go for a GTX 1070 - excellent performance for the price and will only get better with driver updates.

[Sethos 4,266]

I agree that the RX 480 looks like a good card at a good price. I wasn't saying that the OP should buy a 970, just that it's far from being "the absolute worst option" for FSX. If I was buying a new card now, I would definitely go for a GTX 1070 - excellent performance for the price and will only get better with driver updates.

 

Might have made that statement a bit broad, which diluted the point. Meant more in terms of the current 'relevant' cards you'd look at for a new machine, the 970 is the least desirable / worst choice, both in terms of raw performance / performance to cost ratio / straight cost. It was one of the cards that got bumped down to being completely irrelevant as a choice with this new generation of cards from AMD and Nvidia. So unless you can score one for an absolutely ridiculous price or get one for free, it's not a card I'd suggest to anyone any longer. 

[YukonPete 580]

For flight simulation, I'd say no. Especially if you start working with higher quality terrain and textures that taxes the VRAM, then the 970 is the absolute worst option, due to only being 4GB and not even having the full 4GB available. As soon as you hit 3.5GB, your framerate will drop like a rock.

. What a false statement! I run a GTX 970 and it stellar. I max everything out without a problem. And last time I checked FSX and P3D are 32bit so that can't use 4 or more GB of memory

[vc10man 732]

. What a false statement! I run a GTX 970 and it stellar. I max everything out without a problem. And last time I checked FSX and P3D are 32bit so that can't use 4 or more GB of memory

Agree with you as I've had no issues with my EVGA GTX970.

[Sethos 4,266]

I think you people aren't quite reading what is being said. You seem busy with having to defend your purchase, like I've somehow said it's a bad card full stop and simply doesn't work. That wasn't the case. This is a thread about building a new PC and for a new PC, the 970 is not a relevant card neither in its price bracket, performance bracket nor in a combination price / performance ratio.