Budget Build

[Tino 80]

Hello all,

I’ve recently purchased a new budget build for FSX\P3D. Being from Canada, our dollar is not doing so well. So, with that in mind, I thought it would be fun to see what I could get out of a (1000$CAD - 750$ USD) system. 

The whole point of this build, is to see if you could get acceptable performance, without having to break the bank. I wanted to share this build in case someone else was looking for a similar price point. 

List of parts ordered:

Intel Core i5-7600 3.5GHz - 4.2GHz Turbo Quad-Core Processor $299.99

MSI B250I GAMING PRO AC Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard $144.99 

Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory $88.02

MSI GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card $209.99

BitFenix Neos ATX Mid Tower Case $44.99 

Corsair CXM 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply $84.98

LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer $24.98

Western Digital 500GB HDD. (From another PC)

Intel 250GB SSD (From another PC)

Total: $1005.70 (CAD) Inc Tax.

Initially, I was going to order the N200 Mini ITX Case but, they were back ordered. (Latest estimate was 4 weeks). So, I decided to grab the BitFenix instead. (Still a great case). With regards to OS, I would prefer Win 7 but, thanks to Microsoft, that wont be happening. I have Win 10 from a previous system, thankfully!

I was split between two paths. First path was an i5-7600k with a AsRock Pro4 ATX Board and a EVGA 1050ti. Unfortunately, it ended up being over budget by 150$ I was very keen on keeping it under 1000$ So, I ended up with the above list. The i5-7600 is still a great performing Quad Core. Might not be able to overclock but, still has a max turbo frequency of 4.2 GHz. 

I will be posting some results in the next few weeks to show how it performs. 

Cheers,

[martin-w 3,234]

Looking forward to seeing your results. Will be interesting to see how a budget build does. 

[Tino 80]

Update:

Parts came in and it’s all been put together. Windows 10, Drivers & updates are all installed.

The i5-7600 is performing very well. Temps stay cool with the OEM heat-sink. It varies between 45c idle and 65c at full load. Ram has been overclocked to take advantage of the full 2400Mhz. The BIOS on the B250i is very easy to navigate and use. Initial 3dMark11 test scored 10,654. This was better than I originally thought.

I’ve installed the latest version of P3D and ran some initial tests. Below are a rundown of the settings currently being used. 

Graphics:

FXAA – 4X

MSAA – 8X Samples

Texture Filtering – 4X

Texture Resolution – 2048 x 2048

Screen Resolution – 1920x1080

VSync – On with triple buffering selected

Target Frame Rate – Unlimited

Hardware Tessellation – On

Scenery:

LOD Radius – High

Tessellation Factor – High

Mesh Resolution – 10m

Texture Resolution: 7cm

Scenery Objects – All on dense

Water & bathymetry – All on high. Cloud, UV and SO shadows selected

Special Effects – High

Lighting:

HDR – On

Brightness – 0.65

Bloom – 0.91

Saturation – 0.75

Dynamic Reflections – High

Shadow Quality – Ultra

Terrain Shadow Cast Distance – 10,000m

Cloud Shadow Cast Distance – 10,000m

Object Shadow Cast Distance – 6,000m

Object Type – Internal\external Vehicle, Sim Objects are Cast & Receive

Addon’s used for testing:

Flightbeam KSFO

FlyTampa CYYZ (With all options checked within the configurator).

Aerosoft Airbus A320X Series.

Default Weather (haven't installed Active Sky yet).

So far, I have been getting a steady 45 to 65 frames and butter smooth. I’ve tested with hard weather scenarios and never see my frames below 40. The system is performing better than I expected. I will post  another update once I get my other addon’s installed. So far, this is turning out to be a great budget build for those looking to enjoy P3D.

Cheers.

 

 

[Tino 80]

On 4/20/2017 at 4:53 AM, martin-w said:

Looking forward to seeing your results. Will be interesting to see how a budget build does. 

Thanks! I am actually really impressed on how this system is currently performing. I'll post more results as I add more addon's. 

Cheers.

[martin-w 3,234]

One thing to mention though. You did get the non K CPU so you won't be able to overclock. Unless it was a typo. 

For my daughter's Mini ITX Build I went for...

Asus Strix Z270I

7600k

16 GB GSkill Ripjaw V

EVGA 1060 SC

Samsung 960 Evo 250 GB M.2

850 Evo 500 GB

EVGA 750 Watt PSU

Lian Li PC Q36 Mini ITX.

 

 

[Tino 80]

45 minutes ago, martin-w said:

One thing to mention though. You did get the non K CPU so you won't be able to overclock. Unless it was a typo. 

For my daughter's Mini ITX Build I went for...

Asus Strix Z270I

7600k

16 GB GSkill Ripjaw V

EVGA 1060 SC

Samsung 960 Evo 250 GB M.2

850 Evo 500 GB

EVGA 750 Watt PSU

Lian Li PC Q36 Mini ITX.

 

 

Hi Martin,

Yes, getting the non-k 7600 was essential for reducing the cost of the overall build. (Keeping it under 1000$ CAD with tax). I can still manage to achieve 4.2Ghz with the Intel Turboboost Technology. If I were to go with a K version, I would have needed to purchase a more expensive motherboard. 

The build you've listed looks great! 

Cheers.

[martin-w 3,234]

Yep, fair enough. $1000 is about 770 of my English pounds, so you have demonstrated quite nicely that it is possible to build a system that performs very nicely on a reasonable budget.

I've just had a hiccup with my daughters build. I'm a Noctua air cooler fan, but the cooler I bought for my daughters rig isn't suitable for the Mini ITX build. The airflow will be compromised as it's a down-flow cooler and the alternative coolers don't fit as the graphics card will be in the way.

Anyway, I ordered a Corsair H100i V2 AIO. And the people that know me around here will be laughing their socks off that the anti-AIO guy has actually ordered one.  But don't worry, I'll be watching it every five minutes, donning a diving suit and wearing an aqualung... just in case it leaks.

[Ted Striker 338]

20 hours ago, Tino said:

If I were to go with a K version, I would have needed to purchase a more expensive motherboard. 

....and an aftermarket cooler if you wanted to be able to overclock it. I'm impressed with the performance Tino. Looking forward to your report after you get all your addons installed and you have some time with it.

1 hour ago, martin-w said:

Anyway, I ordered a Corsair H100i V2 AIO.

Sacre Bleu!  You caved!  I have been running one of those old smaller Noctua downflow coolers in my 4.5ghz overclocked 3770k since 2013. Its been a champ. I couldn't fit a vertical cooler in due to the large 240 cm side fan in my case.

Ted

[martin-w 3,234]

14 hours ago, Ted Striker said:

 

Sacre Bleu!  You caved!  I have been running one of those old smaller Noctua downflow coolers in my 4.5ghz overclocked 3770k since 2013. Its been a champ. I couldn't fit a vertical cooler in due to the large 240 cm side fan in my case.

Ted

 

 Had no choice Ted. The airflow would have been bonkers. 

The Noctua wasn't a smaller down-flow version, it was the NH-C14S. Miraculous cooler that despite having only one fin array manages to be within a few degrees of the D15. God knows how Noctua manged it. So if viable would have been ideal. 

I knew there would have to be compromises in a Mini ITX though so was prepared for that. In fact when I mentioned I was building previously I said I may have to go down the AIO route. I have no problem with that, the reason I was against AIO's was that even though the risk of leaks is small, no point if an air cooler like the Noctua does all you need it to do. And the noise issue of course, the Noctua being super quite and AIO's usually not.

Will be interesting to see how it performs. 

Apologies to the OP for sidetracking his thread. 

[Charlatan 68]

I've just grabbed a G4560 to have a play with.  Gonna make a cheap system with a GTX 1050, will post my findings in the FSXmark thread when I get a chance.

Apparently, it's comparable to an i3 6100 as it is a Kaby Lake CPU @ 3.5ghz with hyperthreading, and only £55

[martin-w 3,234]

Forgot to mention, re my  AIO. 

I certainty wont be doing what many testers do with water cooling. Namely run them for a few minutes and take a reading. That's certainly a viable approach with air coolers but not water. 

Air coolers with copper or aluminium bases react very quickly to CPU temp. Metal heats quickly and also cools quickly. Not so with water. Water can take 40 minutes or longer to reach peak temp. Take a reading prior to that and you can be fooled into thinking your AIO or custom loop is far more awesome than it actually is.

Same for cooling down. Water can take a long time to cool after the load is removed.