CPU

[creator2003]

Well my PC gave up after its long life as a mean machine ,and has left me some decision making ,mainly which CPU and brand to go for .
ive had some quotes and im on a limited budget , so to keep my tower and upgrade the parts with

QUOTE

Intel Core i5 760 2.8GHz 1156 1
Asus P7P55D-E DDR3 USB3 SATA3 1156 1
Kingston 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 2x2G 1
EVGA GTS450 1G 1
CoolerMaster 650W eXtreme Power[/quote]
Just over $1000 or i can buy one of those pre made boxes on trademe with a AMD hexi core like this one http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Desktop...n-321978938.htm
which features a CPU speed of 17 GHz and Memory: 8 GB which has to be better does it not ? how much in ghz are the i5 which i read has a good overclock speed ,not that i want to do that
what kinda limits will i have in graphic cards ,is the ATI Radeon HD4250 Graphics any good could i replace with a nivda gts 450 480 cards etc ,
i havent needed a pc in so long and havent kept up with whats new etc any advice would be welcome
cheers mike

this is solely a FSX design gaming PC ,will the cores be able to be used infinite mask them or whatever its called .

Last edited by creator2003 on Mon Oct 04, 2010 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[IslandBoy77]

Hi Mike. $1k is pretty light for a good FSX rig - you need to be looking more towards $2k to be getting something half-way decent. You'll find very quickly that people are very protective of 'their' fav brands / types. There have been numerous discussions about Intel vs AMD, nVidia vs ATI over the last couple of weeks. The short of it is that an AMD / ATI combo will set you back around $300 less than an approximate Intel / nVidia combo. Intel still makes the most powerful CPUs, and nVidia still hold much of the mid-range in graphics. However, ATI currently hold the top end (if the reports I've seen are correct) and the lower end, and AMD holds the mid-range for the CPUs. So, despite the entrenched position of some (do I hear hounds at the doors, baying for blood? ) who insist that there is no life outside of Intel / nVidia, if budget is primary for you, you'll get a fair rig with fair to good performance with an AMD / ATI combo.

A six-core AMD is good - just spend as much as you can there. 8GB is a must for RAM - make sure it's at least DDR3 1333Mhz, pref DDR3 1600Mhz (or 2000 - but I doubt your budget would allow for that). Also, make sure the mobo can take at least 16GB of RAM later, and if at all poss, have SATA3 / USB 3 on-board (although again, this might be a budget problem - but push through to this if at all poss). For graphics, you want an HD5770 or better. For PSU, you want a 600W true (not a 510W that peaks at 600) - AcBel are an excellent brand: I recommend their R88 that has a "Silver Plus" rating & 3 x 12v rails. For HDD, since budget will rule out SSD, you want a 64MB cache SATA3 drive - the best price / quality combo for that is the Western Digital WD1002FAEX black drive. I don't think there is anything smaller than 1TB that fits this bill. Again if at all poss, you want 2 of those - 1 for Windows, 1 for FSX.

I think your budget will cut out any serious possibility of overclocking, so just get a nice mid-tower case than can fit an ATX board (so you aren't cramped with video cards) and have a couple of 8cm or 12cm fans in there. I like Cooler Master and Foxconn cases - the Foxconn TLA566 is a nice, cheap case (comes with a 350W PSU but you flick that on since you need a 600W) that is well-made - a good "all rounder" for those on a budget. It's main bug-bear is the slightly awkward arrangement of the front panel cables - nothing that a few cables ties won't sort, though.

[creator2003]

Yes i know im pushing on the budget ,though i always plan to put better components in later ,i did after this posting see the other one you guys were chatting in about this ,i think ill do the AMD 6 hexi core 1055t 8 gig ram package ,i know it comes with a crappy graphic card but ill buy a 5770 or something when i can put the extra money together , the hard drive will have to be a sata2 for now till i can do something about that aswell ,i just think these trademe PCs are pretty good to included tower /hdd /etc ,my quote on just replacing my parts in my own tower was $150 more than one of these $1000 hexi cores pcs..
anyway being a intel user for many years ,im hoping my amd years coming are just as good .
ty for your advice it confirms what i was thinking .
mike

[dart15]

For your budget I think you are spot-on with your m/b and cpu. With some good cooling (and possibly but not necessarily a little higher spec RAM) you could certainly get some leverege and very respectable performance gains out of those components though overclocking. This would be fairly straight-forward given that those components are over-clock friendly .

Given that this is to be primarily a FSX machine you could postpone expenditure on a better graphics card. Conventional wisdom seems to be that Nvidia works best with FSX but I took the ATI route (5850) and dont regret it.

dart out

[creator2003]

Well i brought the AMD Hexi core 1055t trademe deal $1066 and will put my 8800gts in it until i can purchase Nvidia 460 to pop into it ,the pros of being able to overclock the Cpu will make a huge difference and the ram can be jumped upto 16gig in the future ,i was really only aiming for the cpu and ram as i know everything else is easy to replace
against the grain AMD /Nvidia combo