Hi,

I'm starting to get things ready for a move to P3DV4 from FSX, and I'm looking for opinions an the following hardware changes. My current specs are in my signature.

1. I would like P3DV4 on a dedicated drive (I want to leave FSX installed for now). I don't care too much about load times. I am primarily concerned with in sim performance. Is an SSD necessary, and if so, what about this one https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA12K54C9643 (SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V6E1T0BW)? Considering I want a 1tb drive, is there another (meaning cheaper) SSD or even an HDD that I should be considering? How about another Velociraptor https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA67S3GU1384?

2. Do I need more RAM? 

 

Thanks for your input!

2 hours ago, duckbilled said:

How about another Velociraptor

The price being charged for the drive in your link is only very slightly less than some of the 1TB SSDs available from the same site. An SSD will be faster, use less power (and remain cooler) and will generally have a longer warranty. An SSD won't significantly improve in-flight performance but will noticeably shorten the loading times and, whilst not absolutely necessary, if it's not going to cost too much more than the HDD that you're looking at then it's a no-brainer! Rather than the 960 EVO, take a look at the 850 EVO - not as fast but if you don't already have an SSD you'll still be blown away by the performance compared to a HDD - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147374.

2 hours ago, vortex681 said:

The price being charged for the drive in your link is only very slightly less than some of the 1TB SSDs available from the same site. An SSD will be faster, use less power (and remain cooler) and will generally have a longer warranty. An SSD won't significantly improve in-flight performance but will noticeably shorten the loading times and, whilst not absolutely necessary, if it's not going to cost too much more than the HDD that you're looking at then it's a no-brainer! Rather than the 960 EVO, take a look at the 850 EVO - not as fast but if you don't already have an SSD you'll still be blown away by the performance compared to a HDD - https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147374.

Thanks. This is very helpful. One last question about the SSD - what form factor do I want?

This is what my board has:

2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) 
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode) *1

Re RAM, no you do not need more RAM (16GB is plenty, I fly P3DV4 with 8GB)

Re SSD, the easiest is to use a standard SATA cable version.

(assuming you have a spare SATA connector on your motherboard)

A dedicated 850 EVO SSD is what I use as well..

Crucial also make very good SSD and they cost a little less then the samsung.  I have 2 desktop PC. One using Samsung SSD and the ither using Crucial SSD. I cant tell the difference in performance. http://www.crucial.com/usa/en/ssd-upgrade-advisor

1 hour ago, YukonPete said:

Crucial also make very good SSD and they cost a little less then the samsung.

But only have a 3-year warranty compared to 5 for the Samsung.

The 960 EVO will be faster in benchmark numbers, but in real world performance, there will be little difference between it and the sata version.

The 850 EVO Bert suggested is one of the best consumer ssd's available. The 1tb or 2tb version of it would work well.

The Crucial MX300 suggested is also a good drive, at a slightly cheaper price.

The only time you would notice a difference would be when writing large files, as the Crucial drive will slow down during large file writes.

 

1 hour ago, vortex681 said:

But only have a 3-year warranty compared to 5 for the Samsung.

5 year warranty is useless. By the time you pay postage to return the SSD to Samsung, wait for them to test and then wait for a replacement you are looking at 6+ weeks. In 3 years that SSD you purchased today is with next to nothing so if its more then 3 years only you would be better just buying a newer larger SSD then waiting weeks for a replacement.

8 hours ago, YukonPete said:

5 year warranty is useless.

But it gives you an indication of the faith the company have in the quality and longevity of their product. Given two otherwise similar products (price, performance, reputation) I would go for the one with the longest warranty.

Also, you'd have probably already replaced the SSD as soon as it failed, so the warranty would effectively give you an additional new, free SSD.

Thanks everyone. With the NGX being released, it looks like it is go time for me with P3DV4.

I am looking to upgrade too, and move to P3Dv4. have ordered a Seagate 2TB SDD, and considering an i7-7700K. But just read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/s/i7-7700k/

Anyone having problems with the 7700K? Any info or recommendations on GTX 1080ti?

Thanks for any feedback!!

 

Agreed with some here - go to crucial and download the app that will scan your system, it will recommend various offerings.  I went from 6 GB to 24 GB and added a secondary 256 GB SSD drive.  Now, I know many will consider this a pretty small drive (256 GB - their smallest) but I have most stuff on the old rotational platter (1 TB, about 80% full lately), and all I use the new SSD for is FS stuff and I have Prepar3D V4, PDMG 737, 747, ORBX several regions, and some FlyTampa airports, and other minor stuff too installed on just the new SSD; and it works beautifully and I'm only at the 50% occupancy mark, and  I'm only $100.00 into this SSD thing.  I'm trying to stretch this system until next year's tax refund, when I plan on building a new system from the ground up.

These tweaks, combined with the V4 version of PDMG aircraft, are serving me well!

Oh and to the poster above, yes you're on the right track for a build done today - Intel 7700K, GTX 1080ti, all the SSD you can swing.  Hoping for new offerings from all by next spring.  We'll see.

Mark Trainer

 

 

Since I got my 5960 working now, I am ready to upgrade.

i9 7900x is high priced but will it give you good results?

Tom Johnson

So I got the EVO 850. I installed it. I usually shy away from installing hardware except for graphics cards and memory, but I did this one myself. Everything seems to be working. P3DV4 seems to be working well, and I am slowly installing available add ons.

The drive, however, doesn't seem to be performing as well as it should. In game it is fine but load times are not that snappy - even with vanilla P3D. There are a few things I can't figure out.

1. Do I enable Rapid Mode? Google produced mixed messages, and the ominous warning about a restore point is giving me pause. BTW, I have system restore disabled (I think it is suggested in Nicks bible)

2. I also see people saying I need to install the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver. Do I?

3. Here are the stats from the Magician benchmark. I don't know how to interpret these values. Are they consistent with a properly performing EVO 850?

• Sequential Read: 405 MB/s
• Sequential Write: 396 MB/s
• Random Read: 60,267 IOPS
• Random Write: 29,937 IOPS

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated. Keep in mind that this SSD is for P3DV4 only. OS is on a HDD. FSX is on a different HDD.

Thanks!

-Jeff

No need to enable anything.. seems to be working just fine.

My readings are

551/409

71,292/50,629

Not sure you would be able to tell the difference.