Aviator81

Just about as definitive as it gets . I think though that I've decided to hold off for now, but I'll probably opt for a system drive first and then another for FSX when funds present themselves. I just like the idea of turning on my computer and being on the desktop in a few seconds and load times have never been that much of an issue for me with FSX.

I was about to dispute the space requirements for a drive containing pretty much only the OS, but then I had a look at my C drive, which is basically only windows and a few basic programs and it clocks in at 86GB used. Considering a basic Win7 Pro x64 install is just over 21GB, that's a lot of bloat over time. I guess this is also why I reformat / reinstall every 2 years or so anyway. Your one drive costs almost as much as my entire core upgrade. I probably won't be in a position to buy a drive that size until it costs under $200. That being said, I might be able to afford a 240GB, though I would say the more I'm reading at the moment, I would still need a dedicated windows SSD along with a dedicated FSX SSD, so that's going to increase the overall cost of such an upgrade by at least 100%. I'm curious though, since we're on the subject, what this community thinks about hybrid drives and whether or not they are a viable stopgap measure until SSDs fall in price enough to be affordable at any capacity? Or even possibly going for a small SSD and setting it up as a manual hybrid cache for one or more of my bigger drives?

I'm doing a core upgrade to my system (Q9550 w/ 8GB DDR2 800 to i7-4770K w/ 16GB DDR3 2400) and I've been thinking about possibly including an SSD as part of the upgrade. The catch, though, is that my budget is pretty tight after the purchase of a new cpu, mobo, and ram, and the planned purchase of three new monitors (all identical because I have a mishmash now) and a better video card later on in the year, so I certainly won't be able to get more than one, or anything much larger than about 120GB. The question then would be, does it make more sense to buy a smaller one for windows only, or a little larger one for FSX only, keeping in mind that my FSX install is usually over 80GB. Thanks for any input on the topic.

Like I said, at this point, a new video card just isn't in the mix because its a requirement to upgrade the system core as a package, so that wipes out my current upgrade budget. I will be getting something back from Uncle Sam, but I don't know how much its going to be and I doubt there will be enough there to replace the monitors and to buy a brand new high-end video card. I will still keep the new card in mind for this time next year, since I expect the rest of the system to easily last me another 6 years.

That's already the newest component of the system at about 1.5 years old. Since money has perpetually been a concern for me, I doubt I'll get around to upgrading it again until at least 2015, especially considering how processor bound FSX is and the fact that what I already have pretty much demolishes every other game I play without breaking a sweat. Edit: It will be something to keep in mind though once I have the new guts in place and 3 identical monitors.

So this is what I'm currently using for FSX: Operating System Windows 7 Professional 64-bit SP1 CPU Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz 38 °C Yorkfield 45nm Technology RAM 8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 400MHz (5-5-5-18) Motherboard ASUSTeK Computer INC. Rampage Formula (LGA775) 30 °C Graphics E2442 (1920x1080@60Hz) Acer X223W (1680x1050@60Hz) Acer X223W (1680x1050@60Hz) 2048MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti (EVGA) 55 °C Storage 149GB SAMSUNG HD160JJ ATA Device (SATA) 30 °C 698GB SAMSUNG HD753LJ ATA Device (SATA) 18 °C 931GB Western Digital WDC WD1001FALS-00J7B0 ATA Device (SATA) 27 °C Anyway, I'm getting ready to upgrade the system core and I'm thinking about the following items: CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z87X-UD3H LGA 1150 Intel Z87 RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (Or similar) Also, once I get my tax returns, I'm also going to replace the mishmash of monitors with 3 identical ones to get rid of the differing resolutions, and I should mention that I plan to clock the cpu up to around 4.5GHz. The question is, will this upgrade be able to drive triple screen FSX with good quality? If not, what changes to the planned upgrade would you recommend. For that matter, what changes to the planned upgrade would you recommend anyway. Thanks in advance for any input. PS: I have had someone recommend going with an i5 and more memory because FSX (and just about every other program in the world) doesn't use the hyperthreading technology, and that means the only real difference between the i5 and the i7 is the extra L3 cache. What is the community's thought about this change. Thanks again.

Unfortunately, you are very correct about system to system comparisons because of the complex nature of FSX. When you start throwing add-ons into the mix, suddenly, almost no two setups are exactly alike, which makes real comparison impossible. That being said, it might also explain why not many other people seem to have experienced this: Perhaps something in my setup, whether hardware or software, handled Vista better than Win7 and as a result, that change did have a negative effect on my game results. The problem is, if it really was very specific to me, or perhaps those that it might have effected never installed Vista before Win7 (I only had my computer about a year before Win7 came out, so its possible someone else bought the same rig, but with Win7, thus nullifying the comparison again), a solution might exist, but the chances of finding it are low. Returning to the theme of different systems handling things differently, I tried adjusting the AI traffic and road vehicles down from 59% and 20% respectively, to 20% and 10%, both at the same time and then individually, but saw very little, if any change in performance (maybe a single fps improvement). This was done sitting on the ramp at EDDF, so there were plenty of AI aircraft and cars in the vicinity. I'm not sure why there was no change, but it may have been because my GPU was capping out at about 40% utilization, so the added rendering didn't have much effect on it. As far as tuning goes, I generally use the Auto-tune tool since its given me the best results so far. I did start with a fresh fsx.cfg and attempt to enact some of Word Not Allowed's tweaks, which did help, but were not able to produce equal results to those I've gotten using the tool. In the past I also have used the guide put together by NickN, but again, the auto-tweak tool seems to produce better results on my machine. That being said, its been some time since I've read through that particular one and I know he updates it fairly frequently, so I might have another look at it to see if something has changed in the meantime that will work to improve performance. On a separate note, I'm starting to think that my system bottleneck is no longer my video card, as it was before, but rather my CPU / RAM. This is because my CPU is often running at near 100% load and I'm using 3.6ish of my 4GB of RAM. I do have plans to upgrade to newer tech in the next year or so, with at least 4x more RAM and whatever the best new processor / motherboards are at the time, but I'm still wanting better performance out of what I've got now to tide me over until then.

This is what I'm talking about... My system should theoretically be beating yours, but its not. I have a Quad-core Q9550 clocked to 3.8GHz, 4GB RAM, A brand new GTX 660 Ti, and am running lower resolution than you at 1680x1050. Even with tweaks and some reduced sliders, I'm pulling less fps than you. I really do think its got something to do with the way Win7 handles apps, which is why I'm hoping that someone has identified what that is and how to correct it in the intervening years since Win7 hit the market. I'm almost sure that if I set up a dual boot with vista, I'd be able to show much better fps with that than anything I've been able to get currently.

I recently upgraded from an ATI 4870x2 to a GTX 660 Ti, partially because my old card was starting to die (couldn't hold the factory overclock), and partially because I was hoping for some kind of improvement in FSX fps. There was a good improvement, 2-3 times more fps under certain circumstances with a massive increase in image quality due to the fact that FSX never caps the GPU so AA / AF don't hurt fps anymore, but I'm still CPU bound and capped in the most complex areas at around 13-15 fps, which, even though its much better than the 5-9 I was getting before (heavy, complex aircraft in an extremely complex addon scenery with heavy duty clouds... I've always gotten much better in other places, but this is my test situation), is still fairly slow. I'm still tweaking things in the hopes of improving that, but all of this has reminded me of the single greatest gain / loss of fps in my FSX experience, which was when I went from Vista x64 to Win7 x64. Though Vista was chock full of problem and I don't think I would ever go back, I got about twice the FSX fps with that operating system (about 23-30 in the same test area from above) than I've ever been able to get in Win7. Is there a way to tweak Win7's performance so that I can reclaim some of that lost fps? Though I cannot seem to find the thread, I think I did already ask this years ago when Win7 was fresh on the market and I had first noticed the issue, but no one was able to offer any kind of solution back then. I'm kind of hoping that enough intellectual water has flowed under the flight sim community's collective bridge to have had someone come up with a solution after all these years. Thanks.

Can you please point me to some contradictory charts? Ever since this conversation has been going on, I've been looking at charts, and while they are never to be taken only at face value, if you see a trend, its generally fair to say the trend is correct... Here is another chart putting the 660TI in the mix with the 480 and 570... http://www.digitalversus.com/graphics-card/graphics-cards-performance-index-tables-a584.html

Well, after some finagling and back bending, I've inched my budget up high enough to buy the 660Ti. The reasons being that according to this chart the 660Ti is only a slightly below the 480 and 570 and clearly beats the 560Ti. In addition this head to head comparison shows that it edges out the 570 in most areas. Over and above that, it has all the new tech and better stats which should make it just that much more future proof. Now the question I'm left with is which one to go with? Based on my budget and my desire to get the most for my dollar, I've narrowed it down to these three: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127696 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130810 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162120 The only real difference seems to be the manufacturer and the GPU / Memory clock speeds. The only nvidia card I've ever owned was nearly 10 years ago, and I can't even remember what it was other than GeForce, so I basically have no experience with the modern nvidia cards or their manufacturers. Can anyone give me input on which is better or worse? The clocks are all within about 5% of each other and I'm a competent overclocker anyway, so I'm not worried as much about that as I am in choosing the right brand for quality and durability. Thanks again.

I've had bad luck with refurbished unfortunately. Mostly with phones, due to the fact that warranty replacements are more often than not refurbished. In my case, the original, new from the store phone will worked for 14 months without issue before breaking, the the manufacturer refurbished replacements had to be replaced 5 times in the next 8 months before my upgrade date. I've also had a similar issue with a CDJ I bought refurbished, though it was ultimately resolved without any cost to me, I had to have it re-refurbished twice before it would work correctly. That all being said the 480 might be a high performer, but its even older than the 560/70 and I don't think I'll be willing to reach that far back in time based solely on the fact that performance isn't everything and a lot of new tech is shoehorned into the newer models that the 480 just won't have. I have a 1KW PSU because I was originally going to buy a second 4870x2 to run in crossfire. Unfortunately, cost and the fact that the card couldn't really run FSX (my primary game) and the one I already had ate pretty much everything else for breakfast (its only just now starting to require reduced settings in modern games, and at least some of that is the memory fault), I never got around to it. According to Nvidia, I have almost double the minimum requirement of any of the cards that I'm considering. I have been wanting a third screen for a long time, but that isn't necessarily a deal maker, since I may never get around to buying it. That being said, this goes back to the newer vs. older tech thing I mentioned a little up in this post. I'm not well versed in what the 480 can do, but if I remember correctly, eyefinity on the ATI side (much cooler with up to 6 screens, but also that much less likely to occur on my budget) only came out with the 6xxx series cards, which are basically the same generation as the 5xx series cards. The thing that always bothers me about the benchmarks is that they rarely give a good indication of how they perform on average for games. My 4870x2 is a perfect example: At the time of purchase (it was a brand new card at the time), it was ranked lower than several other cards for benchmark scores, while at the same time ranking way higher than some of those cards in games (except FSX... <_<). It makes it difficult to choose the right one since you may end up with something that works great except for what you want it to. I'm also always torn between the fact that newer tech doesn't always mean better performance, while at the same time, better performance doesn't always mean its more future proof. Sure I could get a brand new GTX 480 for less than a GTX 560Ti, but its got older tech which may end up becoming a bottleneck for my rig when I start upgrading things like the motherboard / processor and RAM in the next year (still running a Q9550 clocked, but with a bad stepping), so I'm not sure if the extra performance is going to be worth the potential trouble later on. That being said, the things about the 660Ti that make it most appealing to me, namely the PCI-E 3.0, the 4 monitor support, the high number of cores, and the adaptive features built in to the chipset, just aren't available on the earlier models, so I'm drawn back to the question again of whether or not it makes more sense to take a little less performance for the potential improvement associated with new tech.

The 660Ti has 2GB (compared to 1280 for the 560 and 1500ish for the 570) and 3x as many CUDA cores. Don't forget that I play a lot of other games and want this card to have some staying power. I know none of the ones I'm looking at are top of the line like my 4870x2 was way back when I got it, but even a 480 would be a step up from where I am now, so I want to make sure that whatever I pick, I'm going to be able to hold onto it for at least 2-3 years without the game technology overrunning it. If the 560 / 570 fits the bill for those requirements, then I'd happily pay less and go more budget, but since it looks like the specs for the 660 are near double in many ways, I'm stuck wondering if its going to have a significantly longer staying power, saving me money in the long run.

A further question has arisen here based on the release of the 660Ti. Considering the much better stats, is it worth it to save for a few weeks to try and get this? I know its not going to be top of the line, but I imagine it will have much better staying power than the 560Ti or even the 570. That being said, in a few benchmarking comparisons, the 570 outperforms the 660Ti, so then the question is whether or not the extra $50 is worthwhile? Edit: Sorry for the rapidfire posts, I'm always fearful that someone might be in the process of replying to one question while I edit in another, which then never gets answered...

After some more exploring now that I'm home from work, I've found that I could get an EVGA 570 for $5-$15 more depending on the exact model... Is there any reason you would steer clear of the 570 or EVGA (which I thought was a good brand for nVidia...)?