Looking for some advice on upgrading my system

[fordgt40]

Hi Warren

FSX is CPU bound and the best single improvement is raw clock cycles. Your best bet is to go for an I5 or I7 that is overclocked to circa 4.5 ghz. There are companies  who will do this for you and sell a guaranteed/warranted system. Regards graphics cards I have no knowledge and will leave that to others 

Regards

David

[fsaviator]

Hi David.
That's what I'm looking at.  I'm building around the i7-3770K.  I just can't decide on Asus or MSI for the motherboard.  My current board is an Asus and typically I have no problems with them but it is giving me fits booting my SSD drives.  It's kind of souring me to Asus.

[fordgt40]

Hi Warren

It was only that you mentioned 3.9ghz turbo mode that I suggested overclocking instead. Sorry, but I have no comparative knowledge of current motherboards

David

[Flying_Fox]

Hi Warren,

I have MSI P67-GD65  (my system is 2 years old now)  with Sandy Bridge 2600K overclocked to 4.6 Ghz (with Hyperthreading off). I am happy with that motherboard and MSI claims to use military-grade components. I use Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus cooler and the processor cores never go over 65 degrees underf FSX load.
I would think 32 GB RAM is too much (I have 8 GB). In any case FSX as 32-bit application and cannot use more that 4gb memory address space. Unless you are planniing to run more memory-hungry  applications on the same PC.

Nick

[fsaviator]

HI Nick.

thanks for the input.  I really like the MSI...  I'm seriously considering it.  As for the RAM...  I know that it's overkill but I'd rather just max it out now so I don't have to worry about it later.  I don't plan on running anything else on this system but you never know.  Besides, I'm holding out hope that at some point a new alternative to FSX will appear that takes advantage of the system specs.  This will be the last FSX system I build.  If it can't hang...  oh well.  I'll live with it until something better comes along (or I make the plunge to X-plane) in which case this system will be adequate.

[HarryZ]

Warren,

As for a graphics card, have a look at the Nvidia 660 O/C 2G ram card. It's probably the best bang for your money and it only needs one 6 pin connector power supply while most other heavy duty cards require two. It's cheaper than other higher end cards.

While there are other cards out there that are more powerful, you may be wasting money getting one of those since FS X is so CPU dependent. What you don't want is a video card waiting for data from the CPU so get a core i7 and get Windows 7 Pro 64 bit O/S.

It's also important to tweak your FS X cfg file properly as well.  If not done properly, you'll get stuttering and variable FPS even with a powerful system.

Harry

[fsaviator]

Thanks Harry.
How does the four monitor deal work with the surround video?  From what I'm reading, the card you have has a dual dvi-I and a dual dvi-D connector.

How are you hooking four monitors up to that?  Are there splitter cables with the card?  have you had a chance to see if performance is improved over the TH2Go?

[sluyt050]

Hi Warren,

I just finished my 3 projector, flat screen, setup (3x1280x800, 210 deg. viewing angel, Geforce 680, TH2go, i7-2600, 4.7 GHz, FSX, 3+1 views). I chose for the TH2GO because I presently have a generic cockpit (mainly flying PMDG 738NGX) and like to add 2 2D panel monitors running from the same card.

Today I decided to go for a 3 PC scenery setup and get rid of the TH2GO. Later I plan to switch to  Jetstream + Prosim737 and Prepar3D (2.0). Originally, I had in mind to stick with 1 heavy machine based on the expected Intel Haswell CPU. But as I see it now, performance would probably still remain a pain in the ass at some airports and using real time weather. Moreover, after some time flying I mostly get an OOM error which I never had in a 1 view configuration. Last but not least, I am impressed by Scott's approach and the experience he has.

I already have OpusFSX, but rarely used it and now it seems a nice solution for integrated real time synchronized weather over 3 views/PC's and a Live Camera mullti PC/view setup.

My 2 client PC's specs are:
mobo: Asus P8Z77-M
CPU: Intel Core i5 3750K (overclocked to about 4.5 GHz)
Cooler: Scythe Mugen 3 PC Games Hardware ed.
Video card: MSI N660 TF  2GD5/OC
Case: Fractal Design Arc MINI
PSU: Be Quiet! Straight Power E9 450W
Memory: Corsair Vengeance CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8 (8 GByte)
SSD: Crucial m4 SSD 2.5" 256GB
OS: MS Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM

Maintenance is done with TeamViewer since I plan not to use a mouse & keyboard for my client machines.

Warren, I wish you success and hope my contribution will be helpful.

[fsaviator]

Thanks Harry.
I'm pretty much sold on the three PC setup.  We'll see.  I've been flying the TH2Go setup for a while, and for the most part I'm happy.  I'm hoping the new PC will get me through another year, or until I talk myself into the Xplane switch.  After all, if I am going to go the three PC route, I might as well switch to Xplane.  I just don't see the point of hanging on to FSX if I have to shell out the bucks for another two systems anyway (keeping in mind I'm already running three).  Granted I would hope I can use the view client PCs for the current PC duties.

[jskibo]

Warren,  Scott says ProSim isn't working with Xplane, so that might hold you back a bit . It has me...lol

[fsaviator]

I know.  That's factored in to why I'm not going to three view PCs yet.  I hold out hope that version 2 will have X-Plane support.

At some point, I'll get tired of messing with FSX and if Prosim isn't on board with XPlane at that point, I'll look elsewhere for a suite that is.