My system is coming on two years old now, below is the current specs.  I mainly play P3D but will try out XP11 when it comes out.  Below are the items I want to upgrade, any suggestions?

 

1- SSD, upgrade to a larger size

2- RAM, what speed and how much should I go with

3- Add another GTX 970 card with my existing one, would you recommend a different card to go with my GTX 970

 

 

Current System:

 

- Motherboard: Gigabyte Z97X-SLI 2 ways SLI & Crossfirex SATA 6GB/S USB 3.0 ATX

- Current SSD: Corsair 512 GB Force LX Series SATA III SSD

- Current Ram:  2 sticks of ADATA XPG V3 4GB DDR3 2133 Memory

- Current Graphics Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 970 FTW ACX 2.0 4GB

- I7 4790K not overclock

 

 

Appreciate any insight!

Overclock your CPU. That will probably give you the biggest performance boost and, as long as you've got a decent cooler, it's free.

 

If your budget will cope, I'd ditch your current 970 and go for a 1070 - much better performance and none of the potential issues associated with SLI.

So two 970 will not be as good as 1 1070?

 

I also would like to prepare my computer for XP11 and the possibility of P3D at 64 bit.  I know my current ram at 8gb would not suffice.  Should I go to 16 or even higher?

So two 970 will not be as good as 1 1070?

Look here for some comparative benchmarks - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1070/. It's quite a long article, but interesting. If price is not an issue, I think that the biggest reason to go for the 1070 is compatibility and ease of setup - SLI sometimes struggles with new drivers and games. I currently have a 970 and when funds are available I will go for a 1070 even though another 970 would be quite a lot cheaper.

x-plane 11 recommends 16-24 gb of ram, so it wouldnt hurt to get 32gb of ram. the gtx 1070 will blow your 970 away and the 1070 will also have 8gb of true fast vram.i don't know if you are wanting to upgrade your cpu, but in your situation i would wait a month or 2 and buy a 7700k, a new motherboard, 32 gb of ddr4 3,000 mhz ram and a gtx 1070. if you only want to upgrade one thing go with the gtx 1070 and sell your 970 on ebay.

would going to a gtx1070 help with performance in p3d or will it not be noticable right now, this is my main sim, will try XP11 but dont think that will be my main sim anytime soon.

overclocking your 4790k would probably give you the biggest performance boost, you would get some performance increase from the gtx 1070, if you are gonna upgrade the videocard just for p3d, it wouldn't be worth it. if you play othe  fps games, i think it's worth it.

My opinion, for P3D an overclocking of your CPU should give you a nice performance boost.  X-Plane, overclocking should help there too, but if you use a 64-bit version of X-Plane, more RAM will also be a benefit.

Ok thanks, also could I get the 1070 and leave my current 970 in as well.  I am not very computer savy but will that mess everything up and not be beneficial?

no you can't mix video cards that way, sell your 970 on ebay, you could probably get 150-200 bucks, thats half the cost of the 1070

is there a basic guide to over clocking, I have never done that but looking for a safe way for a newbie to OC.

Have a look on Google, you should find plenty.

is there a basic guide to over clocking, I have never done that but looking for a safe way for a newbie to OC.

 

NickN's guide is very good... and specific to FSX as well.  He used a 4770K but his guide is a great choice for the 4790K too.

 

http://www.simforums.com/forums/haswell-48ghz-on-air-building-a-haswell-system_topic46180.html

 

HTH

 

Greg