McGraw

I'm not sure about the EVO set up but it looks like you'll need to get a WiFi card as there's nothing listed in the specs on partpicker. Check the manufacturer's webite to make sure. Having checked that motherboard out I see it has quad Crossfire/SLI capability. If FSX is all you'll be doing gaming wise then you could save some money here I think. Don't worry about the memory voltage, this is a commonly asked question and Haswell has no issues with 1.65v memory. I've read that overclocking to 1.7v is pretty much risk free and no problem for the IMC. Just enable your XMP in BIOS and you're all set. Intel don't officially support it but if you had any issues they would never know you had been using it. My RAM runs at 1.66v in XMP which is pretty common I think. As your motherboard has Ultra M.2 support, have you considered buying an SSD to take advantage of this? I'm not saying you should but I would advise doing some research as you might decide you would be happy to sacrifice some storage space (or spend some more money) to get the fastest drive you can.

Most has already been said but I will add: -Get better/faster RAM with lower latency. FSX (and Haswell) likes fast RAM. Try and get 2666mhz C10 or 2400mhz C9 but my 2400mhz C11 does me ok and was at a price I couldn't ignore. -I don't think you need CPU compound as the Corsairs come with them pre-applied. Check though. -As discussed above, Z87 is a dead platform. Go Z97 which at the very least will make your parts worth more at resale time. -Definitely try to get a better cooler than the H55. I have a H60 as it's pretty much the only thing that fits in my tiny case (SG05). Many say good air cooler are better than the Corsairs all-in-ones. -Forget about FS9

The 760 is definitely better power/performance than the 750ti which is only a good option for people with weak power supplies.

I'd do it yourself in BIOS making sure you've studied plenty of 4770k overclocking guides. Just remember that 1.3v vcore on the CPU is a nice and safe limit to run 24/7. Some say 1.35v but you should be able to get a decent overclock on 1.3v. Your H100 will give you a good chance to keep temperatures reasonable. Try to keep your temps lower than 80c in AIDA 64 stress test and you will be fine for 24/7 use. Make sure you don't let any adaptive voltage settings in BIOS raise your vcore above the volts you need for the clock speed you're aiming for.

@z06z33 Do you really never ever dip below 30fps, even taxiing or on short finals? I have a 4790k@4.5ghz, 2400mhz C11 RAM and a GTX 970 running 4xDSR locked at 30fps in FSX. I'm very happy with my performance but it will not hold 30fps rock solid in all situations.

SSDs make testing a lot less painful.

Are you going to stick with Nvidia? I think you are in 750ti territory for £120 which will be an improvement but won't blow you away. What CPU do you have as it's best to try and make a good match. Personally I think a 770 is the lowest you should be looking at but once you get there, you may as well cough up for a 970. You won't get much for your 460 either to be honest. Can you link some 760s with differing prices? Other than memory size I can't think of why there would be huge differences in prices.

I don't see a 980 as worth it over a 970 unless you are multi-screening and even then I'd consider overclocking and setting the money aside for big Maxwell and seeing what happens.

What was the 4770 running at? Could you not have overclocked it to near 4.6? I wouldn't upgrade a 4.8Ghz Sandy to a 4790k to be honest. I have a 4790k@4.5 and even with things tweaked as well as possible alongside a 970 I still get borderline choppy frames coming into big airports...usually from 18-25fps. (I realise that my chip is not really that much faster than yours but you could end up with a dud). My guess is you won't be far off that yourself. If you're upgrading for FSX, I would just wait until you hear reports of people able to sustain 30fps landing at big airports...that's when I'm next upgrading my CPU assuming I haven't moved to P3D.

P3D is still mainly CPU dependant. I bought a 970 as I don't believe the price/perf difference from 970 to 980 makes it a serious proposition. If I were you I would get a 970 and spend the money saved on something else. Likely candidates are top quality cooler for max overclock, fastest RAM you can get and a secondary SSD for apps/games if you really want. I might even consider putting the money saved from a 970 to a Haswell-E setup but I'm ITX so never researched it. I have a 4790k running at 4.5ghz with 2400mhz C11. It runs OK in FSX until final approach at heavy airports and I think that faster RAM and a better overclock (can't do it as I'm prioritising noise over fps in FSX). The only way I've been able to max my GPU so far is with 4xSGSS on top of 4XDSR and even this only loses me a couple of FPS in heavy clouds. In summary I believe the 980 is a waste of money and the 970 is amazing bang for buck and all you'll need for now. Drop in another 970 later down the line...with the money you've saved potentially and you're good to go.

Thanks, yes I realise that but was sure I'd read somewhere that certain combinations of AF settings at 16x were FPS unfriendly. I realised after I posted this that I changed a lot of other stuff like adding MSAA to clouds so I'll need to do a lot more digging to find out the settings that make best use of my card without taking to much of a performance hit. Card is overclocked to 1500/4900 currently so I've obviously overdone it.

Up until recently I'd been using 4x DSR and 8x AF in DX10 at 1080 (is it 1080i when vsynced at 30hz?..my TV doesn't switch to i mode so I assume it's still 1080p) seeing max GFX usage of 55% so I knew I had plenty of headroom but it looked good enough, although some shimmering remained and meant I could tweak for the CPU without worrying about the GPU. So I added 4x SGSS and 16x AF and it looks beautiful. Performance seems pretty good too and I've only lost 2 or 3 fps when flying in FSX thunderstorm theme. GPU usage now at 99%. No more time tweak tonight but I'm interested to see what happens if I drop the quality of AF and SGSS both together as well as separately both for performance and visual quality. Then I'll lose the DSR and see what that does. Will report back with further findings, particularly when I finally get round to trialling ASN (trying to get everything running spot on first before I grab the demo).

Sandy to Haswell is probably worth it. Ivy to Haswell isn't. Is it worth a 20% increase for the cost of an extra CPU minus selling cost? Lots of people upgrade because they like having the latest stuff. I upgrade when I need to.

Yes a 2500k at 4.8 is surely worth a stock 4770k in performance?

I've got a 4790k at 4.5Ghz and I can drop to 18fps at very busy airports when taxiing but I don't think this is anything abnormal. Approaches are fine for 25-30fps...are you both talking about the same scenarios? There's a video on Youtube of someone with a 5ghz 4790k and RAM at C8 2400mhz. Yes it looks fantastic but even that struggles with a lot going on out of the window on the ground. I don't think a PC exists that could run FSX day to day never dipping below 30fps. Would love to see a nitrogen cooled 8ghz (or whatever the record is) 4790k running FSX with the fastest RAM possible. I think if I could get to 5ghz and knock my RAM latency down from C11 I would see improvements but as long as takeoffs and landings are nice and smooth, I'm happy.

This is a good read: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=928593

As far as I understand, NVI just overrides (if you want it to) the NV cp settings. As there are no DSR settings in NVI there is nothing to override. I think you can add extra AA to DSR but I haven't tried and don't really see the point...although saying that I think SGSS 2x in DX9 seemed a bit crisper but I could be wrong and I doubt there will be much in it. Knowing me I am bound to try it though!

I'll try to look this weekend but if I forget, I can pretty much say I changed nothing in DX10 so no AA or anything...just vanilla. I run DSR 4x at 20% smoothing. For NI I used the settings on the Mutley's Hangar review of the fixer but minus any AA. I have no idea whether those settings are particularly current but I'm actually shocked at how well my rig runs now. Super smooth and not too far off 30fps even on the ground. DX9 was nasty by comparison.. Constant tiny stutters regardless of settings (they started when mesh details got increased) and lower frames. I was actually reasonably ok with it with bufferpools=0 but now I realise how bad it was and I don't need BP tweak in DX10. Rest of my spec is a 4790k at 4.5 and 16gb of 2400hz c11 from a single SSD. I have FS Global running off a USB 3 hard drive.

I have a 970. Despite 4096 textures everywhere, 4x DSR and as many visual effects as I can throw at it, I've yet to exceed 66% usage, even at complicated airports and in heavy weather. This is in DX10, I'm never going back to DX9.

I run DSR at same resolution. I only use NV inspector to force 30hz refresh. (and AF but not AA, I use no AA other than DSR)/ FPS limiting is handled internally by FSX.

That's right, VRAM doesn't stack. 3 way 980 is a 4gb card.

Interesting about the cache. I went for an i7 partially because of the benefits for FSX from the guides that are out there. Have you tried both types of CPU?

Try resetting the settings in NV inspector then setting them up again.

Surely you must try Would be the first thing I did.

Ok thanks will give it a shot but I think I have tried without although it was a while back and I wasn't documenting anything.