Buying a new PC

[gdavies]

OK you've convinced yourself it's time for a new PC, the big question is what do you buy? Here is description of the decision making process I used and the outcome. Please remember that these are my opinions, your mileage may vary. I'm not suggesting this is the right answer, merely that this is what worked for me and my budget.

The choices...

CPU - AMD or Intel? I've currently got an AMD rig, but in my opinion Intel has this sitched up at the moment. i3, i5 or i7? It was a simple choice between the i5 and an i7. I went for i7 given FSX's reliance on CPU. I decided against any of the Extreme Edition based on cost and ultimately decided on an i7 2500.

Motherboard - Anything as long as it supported SATA3 (6GB/s vs 3GB/s for SATA2). I expect I'll move to an SSD once they become a bit more cost effective. What's the point in buying an SSD and running it across SATA2? This means you need an H67 based board or better. I ultimately went for an H77 board as this is what was on offer.

RAM - The i7 2600 supports up to 1333MHz RAM. No point paying for 1600MHz or anything like that. Next question is how much? Given FSX is a 32bit application I went with 8GB on the assumption that this meant that FSX could have 4GB and that the other 4GB would be plenty for Windows and all the other bits and bobs.

Disk - I was struggling to justify an SSD. Everying I had seen suggested that the SSD would decrease load times, but not increase frame rates. I went with a SATA3 Western Digital 1TB disk.

Video card - I've seen all the comments about FSX favouring nVidia and initially thought I'd go for a GTX 550Ti and then decided to throw caution to the wind and decided on an AMD 7770. The 7770 was only slightly more expensive but is more powerful and consumes way less power.

The above kit plus a nice looking Antec case, 550watt power supply and DVD reader/writer cost me $1330 on TradeMe (built up and delivered to Wellington). This price didn't include a monitor, keyboard or a Windows 7 licence. I had all these from recent upgrades to my old Dell 520 this unit is to replace.

So how did it all work out?

Pretty darn good really. FSX auto configured itself with all the sliders as far to the right as they can go (ultra high) and I get a wonderfully smooth ride. 8-)

There were a few tweeks I had to make to the out of the box settings for the video card.

FSX anti aliasing is rubbish compared to what the videocard can do. I know this has been documented elsewhere but let me tell you that the difference is night and day. After a bit of experimentation I ended up following the recommendation an disable this in FSX and use the video card settings. I've ended up going with 8X sample rate (super sampling in this case). The card can handle a lot more than that (up to 24xEQ), but I couldn't tell the difference.

The other thing I had to do was fiddle about with anisotropic filtering. Once again I ended up getting the card to this, but the process was a little confusing. I seemed that I had set filtering in FSX but then override it on the videocard. If you didn't do it this way you end up with a banding effect as the sky moves from light blue near the horizon to darker blue higher up. I"m still a bit confused about this but the effect was obvious. I'm not sure whether this is normal for an AMD card.

The decision to go with the AMD 7770 appears to have been a good one. I expect a nVidia card would have been good also, but if my experience is anything to go by the old adage that FSX favours nVidia no longer holds.

I hope that helps other people when in comes to deciding on a config to run FSX. As I said at the beginning your budget may lead you to a different outcome, but I'm more than happy with mine.

[mfraser]

QUOTE (gdavies @ Apr 24 2012,6:22 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I hope that helps other people when in comes to deciding on a config to run FSX. As I said at the beginning your budget may lead you to a different outcome, but I'm more than happy with mine.

A helpful post indeed. I'm in the process of deciding if I should drop a few hundy on a new Phenom CPU for the family PC or break the budget and get one of the new i7 3770 upgrade kits (Which aren't too expensive really).

I know there is still much debate and contention, but I'd be keen to hear from anyone that has anectodal evidence of FSX performing better on more cores and slower clocks or vice versa.
The reason I ask is that I could get a cheap X6 1065T which is 6 cores at 2900mHz - versus an X4 960 which is 4 cores at 3300mHz......

Any idea's thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Mat

[Dean]

Good info there... Just remember the two key factors with FSX are RAW CPU speed, so if you can overclock your i7 2500 safely (with appropriate cooling) that will go a long way to boosting performance, and secondly a decent video card (assuming you have at least 4Gb RAM which you do). Good logic and fair choices. Obviously you were working to a budget, and I think you have done well. Re nVidia vs ATI... I have run two nVidia cards and two ATI cards with FSX since it came out (that's 4 separate cards - not SLI or Crossfired etc) and to be honest, I thought the ATI cards actually worked better in terms of image quality, and the cards speed displaying that image quality... Hard to quantify exactly, but I actually favor the ATI cards for FSX. Of course, this doesnt mean to say that certain nVidia cards are better with FSX than ATI in a similar price/speed bracket. Maybe I just had the ATI cards tweaked a bit better?

[raddragon]

QUOTE (mfraser @ Jul 4 2012,12:52 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A helpful post indeed. I'm in the process of deciding if I should drop a few hundy on a new Phenom CPU for the family PC or break the budget and get one of the new i7 3770 upgrade kits (Which aren't too expensive really).

I know there is still much debate and contention, but I'd be keen to hear from anyone that has anectodal evidence of FSX performing better on more cores and slower clocks or vice versa.
The reason I ask is that I could get a cheap X6 1065T which is 6 cores at 2900mHz - versus an X4 960 which is 4 cores at 3300mHz......

Any idea's thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Mat

Not hard evidence, but a regretful purchasing decision that has, not destroyed but close, my enjoyment of FSX and simming.

I am also in the process of looking for a new rig. My advice, stand clear of the Phenom. I'm on a 965BE X4 with 8gb of ram, a 1TB SATA3 HDD and GTX460 SC and I'm less than impressed with the performance - it's runs FSX like a dog. I configured the same GFX card, same memory, same HDD for a friend (and same tweaks) but with an i5 2500 and the phenom is miles behind an i5.

[Timmo]

QUOTE (mfraser @ Jul 4 2012,12:52 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

A helpful post indeed. I'm in the process of deciding if I should drop a few hundy on a new Phenom CPU for the family PC or break the budget and get one of the new i7 3770 upgrade kits (Which aren't too expensive really).

I know there is still much debate and contention, but I'd be keen to hear from anyone that has anectodal evidence of FSX performing better on more cores and slower clocks or vice versa.
The reason I ask is that I could get a cheap X6 1065T which is 6 cores at 2900mHz - versus an X4 960 which is 4 cores at 3300mHz......

Any idea's thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Mat

As far as I know, due to the fact that multi-core was only added very late in the FSX development cycle, it still really prefers fast clock speeds over more cores and is CPU rather than GPU orientated- Get the fastest CPU clocks as you can.