good afternoon all,

 

I had planned on upgrading my machine last year around this time, and I was just about to pull the trigger when unforeseen circumstances decided to show up and derail my plans.  So it's time again, bonus payments are coming in next week and I want to upgrade for $1300 tops.  I've got a good case, a good power supply, and a good liquid cooling system.  I'd like to upgrade the to a 1TB SSD, and I'd also like to upgrade the processor, mother board, and the video card.  (I'm running FSX - it runs very smooth but I struggle in places like ORD, ORBX SOCAL, etc.)

 

Here are my current specs, any suggestions as to what I can upgrade my motherboard, CPU, and video card to would be much appreciated.  (Budget is max $1300).

 

Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit 

Intel® Core™ i7 CPU 930  @ 2.80GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.8GHz

12288MB RAM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 

 

thnx for any suggestions.  

 

Richard Bansa

I would suggest one of three options.

 

1. Upgrade to Skylake 6700K now, if you don't want to wait. Or perhaps 6600K if you want to save more money.

 

2. Wait till Kaby Lake 7700K is released just after Christmas and then buy Skylake 6700K/6600K as prices may have dropped.

 

3. Wait till Kaby Lake 7700K is available after Christmas and upgrade to that.

 

Either way, you will need CPU, motherboard and RAM.

 

Kaby Lake will run on current Z170 boards, same as Skylake. However, after Kaby Lake is released new boards will be available with the new Z270 chip-set.

 

An example of prices re 6700K...

 

i7 6700K                                                     = $316

Asus Z170-A                                              = $149

16 GB GSkill Ripjaw v DDR4 3200 MHz   = $108

Samsung Evo 1TB                                    = $320

EVGA GTX 1070 SC                                 = $419

 

                                                          Total = $1312                

Hi Martin,  thnx for the response.  I will probably go w/ 6700K (I may wait till after Christmas to see if there is a price drop as you suggested).  Are all SSD drives the same (outside of size) or are there some other major differences?  

 

thnx

 

Richard

There are conventional SSD's like the 850 Evo I mentioned. Fast enough for the majority. They use the SATA bus. 

 

There are M.2 SSD's that are faster and come in the form of a PCB that fits directly to the motherboard. They use the PCI Express 3 bus so are faster than conventional SATA SSD's.

 

There are also U.2 SSD's that are even faster still.

 

 https://rog.asus.com/articles/hands-on/easy-guide-to-ssds-sata-msata-m-2-and-u-2/

 

And of course, speed varies to a degree between different makes and models, but not enough to be noticeable in practice.

 

My recommendation is the 850 Evo, I have one. Fast enough [Windows boots for me in about 20 seconds]  and a reasonable price these days. M.2 and U.2 would be above your budget.

Regarding SSD's I have a 250 GB Crucial M2 as my OS drive and a 500GB Samsung EVO as my P3D drive. You really can't go wrong with either Samsung or Crucial IMHO. In fact, I would seriously look at saving money and buying a 500GB SSD. I have a bunch of stuff on my 500GB P3D drive and it's barely half full. Just a thought. Use the $100 you save to buy a 1TB HDD to use as a storeage drive.

Agree with twharrell, can be useful to have multiple drives, one for Windows and programs and a separate one just for your P3D and add-ons. I have a 500GB SSD for Windows, MS Office, Photoshop, Steam games etc, a 500GB SSD for P3D and all associated add ons, and a relatively cheap 1.5 TB 7200 rpm HDD for storing all my photos, documents and saved download installers etc.

 

Samsung 850 EVO's are a great option. My HDD is a WESTERN Digital Black edition which is relatively fast in the HDD category.

 

You might also need to add a copy of Windows 10 64bit to the budget. Your existing copy is likely linked to the old hardware and will not re-activate on the new system.

 

Also consider adding a closed loop water cooling system for the CPU such as the Corsair H100i. Not too pricy, very easy to install and will allow you to overclock your CPU, while keeping it cool - overclocking the CPU is something P3D thrives on. Most 6700K's will go to 4.7Ghz for a 24/7/365 rock solid stable o/clock when plugged into a quality mobo with quality RAM and an add on CPU cooling option.

 

For RAM go with 16GB (or 32 GB but you won't really get any benefit) and select an option with 2x8GB not 4x4GB. Go with something that offers 3000-3200Mhz.

Hi Martin,

 

Just wanted to say thanks again for the information on the the PC parts.  I picked all the parts up last night, i did switch the i7 6700K to the i7 6800K.  This weekend I will start the build, i've been doing research to understand exactly how all these parts are going to fit into my alienware case, so i'm ready to go. will let you all know how it turns out.

 

Richard

 

i7 6700K                                                     

Asus Z170-A                                              

16 GB GSkill Ripjaw v DDR4 3200 MHz   

Samsung Evo 1TB                                    

EVGA GTX 1070 SC                                 

Good luck Richard, hope it all goes well. Any issue and there are plenty of knowledgeable people here that will try to help.  :smile:

Morning,

 

I worked through the weekend tearing down my Area-51 and then added the new Mobo, graphics card, etc.  I added one new component, I replaced the cooler with a Corsair H100i v2..  This was my first build so I read each manual two or three times watched a number of you tube videos, but finally it was time to turn the system on.  And it turned on on the first try, I was really really surprised, i was prepared to have to spend ours looking for mistakes.  

 

When I went to load windows, I ran into a problem.  The Gigabyte X99-GA Ultra Gaming mobo doesn't recognize the Samsung 850 EVO M2 SSD (the drive isn't listed anywhere in the BIOS)  when I get to the part where I have to choose an install drive, nothing shows up.  I tried installing from a USB stick, unplugging all the other SATA drives, you name it I think I tried it.  I made sure the drive was installed properly and it is.  Finally this morning, I think i may have an idea what the problem could be and I wanted to run it by you guys to see if you think this could be the culprit.

 

The Samsung 850 M2 EVO is a SATA device, eventhough it plugs into the mobo directly (in my ignorance, I thought a device was only a SATA device if it had a cable  :wub:   Apparently, there are two types of M2 SSD devices, one is a SATA device like the 850 EVo, and the other is a PCIe device.  According to this verbiage from the GA-X99 Ultra Gaming page [NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 22110 M.2 Interface & U.2 Interface for Intel^® SSD 750]  it looks to me like this board only supports the PCIe M2, and not the SATA M2.

 

Does this make sense to you guys?  I know it may seem like a rudimentary question, but I am out of my league, like I said when I hit the power button and the machine actually started, I was very surprised!!! 

 

Anyway thanks for the help as I try to get over the last hurdle before I start reinstalling gigs of FSX stuff.

 

Richard

 

quick ps.  what kind of device does one connect to the U.2 interface?

You didn't go for a Z170-A then? Or 6700k?

 

Does sound like your board only supports PCIe M.2.

no when I went to the store they were out of the  Z170-A, the sales guy told me the GA-X99- Ultra Gaming was very similar in features and performance to the Z170-A.  So I got the x99-GA and i went with the i7-6800k instead of the i7-6700K.  Did this guy sell me a bridge in China with the GA-x99?

no when I went to the store they were out of the  Z170-A, the sales guy told me the GA-X99- Ultra Gaming was very similar in features and performance to the Z170-A.  So I got the x99-GA and i went with the i7-6800k instead of the i7-6700K.  Did this guy sell me a bridge in China with the GA-x99?

 

Personally, I'd return them and get what you originally wanted elsewhere.  Less performance for more $.  Think the assistant was just after numbers

6700K is 15% faster single core. 6800K is 29% faster multi-core.

 

GA-X99- Ultra Gaming looks like a nice board. But if you want M.2 you will need...

 

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-samsung-960-evo-v-nand-m2-pcie-gen-30-x4-nvme-11-3200mb-s-read-1800mb-s-write-330k-330k-iops

 

Or go the way I did and get a SATA 850 Evo...

 

https://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-samsung-850-evo-25-ssd-sata-iii-6gb-s-mgx-3d-v-nand-1gb-cache-read-540mb-s-write-520mb-s-98k-90k

 

It's up to you if you send the stuff back or not. Your decision...

 

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6800K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-6700K/3607vs3502

I got  my new system up and running this weekend.   I now have a stable Win 7 64Bit system.  My temps look good, I think the max i've seen so far was 27C, it typically runs around 24C.   I kept the Gigabyte Mobo, the thought of taking everything apart again, made that decision an easy one for me.

 

The only problem I'm having now is that with my USB hub (all my CH gear is plugged into the hub) it causes Windows to hang when trying to start. From some research I've done though, this seems to be a problem with some mobos and not others.   As long as I plug the hub in after windows starts everything works normally.  

 

Next up is reloading the 40+ GB of FSX stuff!!!

 

Thanks again for the help and direction guys, I really appreciate all of it.  

 

(Fingers crossed that i can finally go to NY, ORBX SoCal and not have to deal with a slide show)

 

Richard

I got  my new system up and running this weekend.   I now have a stable Win 7 64Bit system.  My temps look good, I think the max i've seen so far was 27C, it typically runs around 24C. 

 

 

 

Good news Richard.  :smile:

 

That temp would be your idle temp, which doesn't really mean a lot. It's your temp under load that's important.

 

Run something like Rog RealBench and monitor the temp with RealTemp or CoreTemp. CPUZ will enable you to see what it's doing re voltage and frequncy etc.