My first PC flight sim build

[bishups 4]

So I pulled the "heavy" trigger on the parts list, for my new and first gaming build. This build will be mostly dedicated to FSX and X-Plane. I researched and compared a lot, tried to balance price and performance and I hope I did good. Any input or suggestion from an experienced builder is appreciated. After some research I found more than one article comparing AMD and Intel when it came to flight simming. I kept reading that though AMDs new Ryzen processors are really good, Intel lead the way in flight sim, being as it is processor intensive. So I decided to go with the unlocked 9th gen i7-9700k, and some liquid cooling. Even though fsx doesn't rely on the gpu as much as most modern software. I wanted to make sure that it was up for whatever I needed to do so I went with the Nvidia RTX-2070 GPU. I opted for 500gb of Samsung EVO ssd drive space, the ASUS ROG STRIX Z390 gaming motherboard. The ASUS has 4 available DDR4 RAM slots but I will start with 2x8gb ripjaws ddr4 2400 ram. I went with 2TB of mechanical HDD drive space. 850 watts of power from an EVGA 80+ gold psu. And I'll be housing it all in the NZXT-H500i gaming tower. I have no plans of overclocking so I hope I got fairly decent specs. So do you think this build will make for a good flight sim build or did I screw something up?😕

[Mikelab6 89]

Hi,

Great list of parts.  My advice: Put your sims on a bigger SSD (1TB minimum) and you won't regret it.  Use your 2TB HDD for backup files, photo and so on..

Mike

[bishups 4]

Will do, thanx a bunch for the advice! 

[Manny 1,293]

I am curious. Why would you not go with the latest intel Intel Core i9-9900K? $100 difference and overall a small%age change. Was there any other reason other than the $100 save?

I always found HT (Hyperthreading) useful for photo texture loads and refresh (I use a lots of Megaschenery to fly around western US). 

Edited February 20, 2019 by Manny

[bishups 4]

To be honest, I really couldn't tell you. I was already over my budget, the i7 reviewed great for performance and value. And from what I researched it should match well with the rtx-2070. I was just right at that tipping point where I needed to settle. So even though the i9 is awesome, when I compared the extra cost to the extra performance and looked at bench marks. I decided the i7 would do more than enough and I put the extra toward a nice monitor.

[Mikelab6 89]

i7-9700K paired to an RTX-2070 is a well balanced system.  If you go with the i9-9900K, you will have to switch for an RTX-2080 or 2080ti.

Mike

[mpw8679 428]

6 hours ago, bishups said:

To be honest, I really couldn't tell you. I was already over my budget, the i7 reviewed great for performance and value. And from what I researched it should match well with the rtx-2070. I was just right at that tipping point where I needed to settle. So even though the i9 is awesome, when I compared the extra cost to the extra performance and looked at bench marks. I decided the i7 would do more than enough and I put the extra toward a nice monitor.

The 9700K was a good choice.  U would have to disable HT with the 9900K anyways to get a fast stable overlock.  

[mpw8679 428]

3 hours ago, Mikelab6 said:

i7-9700K paired to an RTX-2070 is a well balanced system.  If you go with the i9-9900K, you will have to switch for an RTX-2080 or 2080ti.

Mike

That doesn’t really make sense.  Regardless the 9700K was a good choice.

[Charlatan 68]

On 2/20/2019 at 1:26 AM, bishups said:

 The ASUS has 4 available DDR4 RAM slots but I will start with 2x8gb ripjaws ddr4 2400 ram.

Any reason why you have gone for 2400 ram?  You should be looking at 3200+

[martin-w 3,234]

5 hours ago, Charlatan said:

Any reason why you have gone for 2400 ram?  You should be looking at 3200+

 

3200 at least. Perhaps even more. Not  a huge issue though. 

[bishups 4]

The ram was a screw up. This is my first build, and I was so focused on the cpu and gpu that I didn't take time to compare and think about my ram situation, I just immediately went with the first recommendation from pcpartpicker. I will probably upgrade in the future, if I really need to.

I listed the wrong MOBO, I actually went with the Gigabyte Aorus Pro WiFi. Everything except the i7 has been delivered, of course. It couldn't be something simple, it had to be something that completely prevented the build this weekend. Hopefully be starting on it Monday evening after work. Grabbing an extra set of dual 120mm fans this weekend.

[fghdgdfdfgfgf 111]

37 minutes ago, bishups said:

The ram was a screw up.

 

Understatement: your new pc doesn't even meet the "recommended" minimums for P3d, if you should decide to down that path. Xplane? pretty darn memory intensive ...memory speed has to mean something.

41 minutes ago, bishups said:

 I was so focused on the cpu and gpu that I didn't take time to compare and think about my ram situation,

 

Yeah, that could be an issue when you put your stuff together and you find your new rig isn't meeting performance expectations ....don't forget what your feeding your cpu. Oh, and the GPU also relies on system ram.

Not that your asking me for advice, but I'd ship that memory back now and exchange it for at least 2666 memory.

[mpw8679 428]

4 hours ago, bishups said:

The ram was a screw up. This is my first build, and I was so focused on the cpu and gpu that I didn't take time to compare and think about my ram situation, I just immediately went with the first recommendation from pcpartpicker. I will probably upgrade in the future, if I really need to.

I listed the wrong MOBO, I actually went with the Gigabyte Aorus Pro WiFi. Everything except the i7 has been delivered, of course. It couldn't be something simple, it had to be something that completely prevented the build this weekend. Hopefully be starting on it Monday evening after work. Grabbing an extra set of dual 120mm fans this weekend.

Good mobo choice and I would definitely replace the memory with something faster.  Can you return it?  You went thru all this effort to build a powerful PC don’t handicap it with slow memory.

[Charlatan 68]

What Funknnasty said, send it back and replace

[bishups 4]

Got it built, everything installed, all addons, picked up 3000 vengance ram at bestbuy, sent back the 2400. I have REX Direct, some HD airports,Active Sky 16, USA Mega Mesh, I'm using the PMDG 774 Northwestern Air...............this is incredible, I can't believe the difference, I'm hooked again!