rohit32407

Try resetting store app's cache. Worked for me during last update. Go in command prompt and type wsreset. Restart the PC and see if that helps

Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H-B3 is a good enough motherboard. It can do 4.5-4.7 ghz easily. I personally do love ASUS for overclocking but there is nothing wrong with this one either. Just add a good CPU cooler to that K series i5 and your system will be all set for overclocking. Regards, Rohit

Hi Ben, Free feel to ask and I will try to help you the best I can. Btw 'not rushing' and doing a proper research before building a system is the key to building a great customized rig. Do all the googling and read all the reviews you can about the products that interest you and you might not need any help at all :smile: . Regards, Rohit

Here is what I think will suffice: Processor- i5 3570K Motherboard- 1) ASUS P8Z77-M Pro 2) Gigabyte Z77 G1 Sniper M3 3) Asrock Z77 Extreme4 RAM- G Skill RipjawsX 2200 MHZ 2x 4Gb = 8 GB total Optical drive- Whichever one you like. HDD - If you are going to buy an SSD then buy any 7200 RPM HDD for storage and keep SSD for FSX. If you are not going to buy any SSD then better to look for 1 velociraptor HDD for FSX and 1 normal HDD for storage. Although FSX works perfectly fine on my 7200 RPM HDD but from what I have read, a SSD or a Velociraptor will help FSX. My point here is that a SSD or a Velociraptor is a 'plus' but not a necessity so it's your call. PSU or SMPS- Seasonic S12ii 620w or Corsair GS600 Cabinet- Corsair Carbide 400r. GPU- Any custom PCB Nvidia GTX 660Ti 2GB (from companies like MSI, ASUS etc) CPU cooler- Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo. It is cheap and will suffice for moderate overclocks. Other components like monitor etc. are completely a matter of personal opinion so get whichever one you like. Don't worry too much about overclocking. It is very easy if you are going for only a moderate overclock like 4.2-4.3 ghz. All you have to do is to type '43' in the multiplier box inside the BIOS and you are done. I don't think you will have to change any other settings for such a modest overclock. Look on youtube and you will get many tutorials on youtube which are very easy to follow. There is nothing too complicated about overclocking anymore unless you are trying insanely high clocks. Regards, Rohit

I think if with h50 you can keep it at 75, which is well within limit, then H70 should do a much better job. I would say check the performance with your new cooler first and then decide on a new case and motherboard. Just out of curiosity, what is the temperature of your GPU under load? Are you using any aftermarket cooling solution for the GPU? Regards, Rohit

This rig is not balanced for either the FSX or the other latest games. FSX is CPU hungry and a good overclockable CPU with a good overclockable motherboard is a must for a decent performance. Nvidia works better than AMD/ATI with fsx because Nvidia still supports old shader 2.0 model whereas ATI/AMD doesn't and FSX is based on Shader 2.0 . The processor on this rig is not overclockable so it's not advisable for fsx. Now coming to applications and games other than FSX. The processor and motherboard for are good enough for games and applications other than FSX. since it's an i7 so it will also help with the applications which can make use of hyperthreading. The main concern here would be the GPU. It's an old tech based GPU and not one of the most powerful GPU even in older generation GPUs of AMD(i.e 6000 series). It's been an year since AMD released its 7000 series which are much more power efficient and much better performers. It makes no sense to go for a 6850 now. A 7850 or a 7870 would have been perfectly fine for games other than FSX. For FSX Nvidia is recommended. A gtx 660Ti, GTX 670 or a GTX 680 will work very well with FSX. I am sorry but since I am not aware of the pricing of PC components in NZ so I can't comment on whether it is priced correctly or not. You are in a better position to judge that. Btw why don't you build your own PC? That is always more economical and you can customize it in a perfect way according to your needs. What exactly will be the primary use of this PC to you? Which applications or games are your priority? Regards, Rohit

From what I could make out of your post was that currently you own this config- i5 2500k @ 4.8 Ghz P8Z68-Pro GTX 460 and you are thinking about upgrading it to- i5 3570K P8Z77-V Pro GTX 670 or 680 Honestly saying you will see almost no difference or negligible difference in performance by upgrading your motherboard and processor as you are already running an excellent processor at 4.8 ghz which is pretty high. In my opinion you should wait for haswell(intel's upcoming processor). As far as I know FSX does not utilize any virtual threads on the processors. So even on an i7 only 4 cores will be available to FSX. Although extra cache on i7 might help but the biggest plus point of i7 AFAIK is that they are better binned processor and therefore can reach higher clocks. I maybe wrong here so don't take my words for it. The most performance increase you will see is by upgrading your GPU. I think you should go ahead with either GTX 670 or 680. GTX 680 is obviously better but gtx 670 isn't bad either and will perform very well in FSX. 2 GB of VRAM should be enough for FSX as of now but if money is not a problem then you can go ahead with 4GB as well. Nvidia cards work better with FSX because FSX uses old shader 2.0 model and AMD has stopped supporting older shader models whereas nvidia still does. 8 Gb of RAM is more than enough for FSX. You can go for a higher clocked RAM but again you will see almost no difference or negligible difference. Better to wait for haswell and then change the Processor, motherboard and RAM together. I will summarize here now. I think you should change just your GPU for now as that is the only bottleneck I can see in your current config. Don't change the processor, motherboard and RAM for now. Wait for the haswell and then change these three components together. I say this because Haswell is based on a completely new socket so LGA1155 based motherboards won't support haswell and you will see almost no performance improvement or a very negligible performance improvement by going from Sandy Bridge to an Ivy Bridge based processor. If you want to change to Ivy bridge at all then I don't think you need to change your motherboard. All you have to do is to probably update to the latest BIOS(if you haven't done that already) and you are good to go with IB based processors on the same motherboard. Your current motherboard is quite good actually. Regards, Rohit

That motherboard is not a very good overclocker. It will clock as high as you want but can damage the motherboard's circuitry in the long run. If you can change it then change it to P8z77-v pro. You will feel more comfortable overclocking with it because of better cooling around power regulation circuitry. Regards, Rohit

Everything looks good in your selected config. PSU you have selected is good enough so no worries there either. Don't know much about the cabinet but on newegg it certainly is popular. Just make sure if H100 will fit comfortably in that or not. As for the GPU: Is EVGA your only option? If not then you can take a look at this also http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127672 . Regards, Rohit

Well with 2nd and 3rd generation 'K' series processors you don't need to change FSB at all. Instead of frequency you got to change the multiplier. For eg. FSB by default is 100 so if you want 4.3 ghz all you have to do is to type '43' in the multiplier box(43.x100=4.3 ghz) thats how it works unless you are looking for some really extreme overclocking. But there is more to it than that. There are many other settings which need to be adjusted for getting a overclock beyond 4.3-4.4 ghz in most of chips. You can search on youtube and I am sure there are many Ivy Bridge overclocking tutorials for ASUS BIOS. Trust me overclocking has become alot easier since sandy bridge K series processors came along. Also most of the motherboards of current gen are too picky about any change in their FSB. So, don't change the FSB unless absolutely necessary. Be sure to have a good Aftermarket Cooling solution before attempting any kind of overclock on IB processors. As for RAM i would suggest you to go for a 2400 or 2200 MHZ RAM. You don't need to overclock RAM at all. All you have to do is to select the XMP profile inside the bios for your RAM and it will be all set to run at it's specified frequency. You don't need to manually overclock RAM unless you change FSB. For better explanation refer to youtube tutorials. Here is a link from my side . It's a guide from newegg to overclocking IB chips. Regards, Rohit

Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 will allow you to overclock but don't expect it to go higher than 4.5. If you are lucky to get a good chip which can overclock at lower Vcore then maybe yes but don't expect much out of it. Don't get me wrong I still think this motherboard is good for it's price point and 4.5 ghz can give you desirable performance in FSX. For more information on this motherboard you can take a look at this review by tomshardware http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/asrock-z68-extreme4-asus-p8z68-v-pro-gigabyte-z68x-ud3h-b3,2939-17.html. I think in your budget this motherboard is a good choice.

Your hardware is good enough though fsx itself will need some tuning if you haven't done it already. Word Not Allowed's guide has been a great help to me and to many others in that regard. Please go and have a look at that. here is the link http://forum.avsim.net/topic/370594-software-hardware-guide-for-fsx/ P.S. He has a blog as well but i don't have it's link. Maybe he can share that link himself. Wait for him to reply. Regards, Rohit

Second config but with-: 1) i7 3770K (not i7 3770) 2)Good Z77 chipset based motherboard for overclocking. 3)GTX 660Ti. If not possible then a gtx 660 should do as well. Nvidia performs much better in fsx. Even for games other than FSX 7570 is just not good enough. 4)A decent air cooler for overclocks upto 4.5-4.6 Ghz. Beyond that you may need a water cooling solution or a high end air cooling solution like Noctua NH D14(i personally don't like the bulky looks of this cooler). 5) Faster RAM if possible. 6) At the very least a good 650w PSU. Alot of money can be saved if you build your system by yourself rather than buying a pre-built system from dell. Sometimes these pre-built systems have locked BIOS and overclocking them becomes a nightmare. Regards, Rohit

Even in titles other than FSX there is practically no difference at present between pci-e 2.1 and pci-e 3.0 though in the future it may matter. Only time you will see some bottleneck is when you try to run 2 cards like 7970 on crossfire with only x8 of bandwidth available rather than full x16 bandwidth on pci-e 2.1 slot. Regards, Rohit