£650 spec for FSX

squerble

squerble

squerble

Soldato
Joined
13 Apr 2009
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Hi all, I'm running FSX on my MacBook Pro 13" at the moment but it really doesn't cut it so I'm looking at getting together a PC made purely for that.

I have a monitor (23", 1680x1050; old but it still looks good), a mouse and a Win7 Home Premium x64. So I need just the base unit and a keyboard.

I think it's generally known that an Intel/nVidia combo seems to work best with FSX so I'd like those (no AMD/ATi). I would also presume the recommendation on here would be to sink most of the budget into the CPU/cooler to enable me to overclock? I don't think there's much point in going over 4GB RAM (unless 8GB isn't a big jump in price). Just to reiterate, the budget is as close to £650 as you can.


As an additional question; is it worth buying a fan controller for the case fans or should I just plug them into the motherboard?
 
Do you have a flight stick and rudder pedals ? FSX is not great on a keyboard and mouse mate you really need a flight stick (Joystick) to really enjoy it.
 
Purgatory said:
Do you have a flight stick and rudder pedals ? FSX is not great on a keyboard and mouse mate you really need a flight stick (Joystick) to really enjoy it.
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Yep, already got a joystick (with throttle and twist for rudder). Will look at the Saitek X52 Pro next though I think when this one bites the dust. I should probably qualify that I'm running complex add-ons (PMDG MD11X/NGX/747X) etc so I'm not new to FSX :)
 
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A little bit over, and not quite got everything you need.

Have a play around as FSX is quite spec-heavy!

OJJ1D.png
 
Thanks, that looks ideal so far. Will the 600W be OK for the load I'll be putting it under?

I suppose I could save a little extra by dropping to a cheaper case (I had a CoolerMaster 335U last time which I found more than adequate), plus the drop to free shipping. I was looking at a sound card with optical out but I've just looked at the mobo and it has a build in digital-out so that should be fine. I could then pay for a better CPU cooler (especially if I'm going to overclock).
 
Will have a look at pricing you up a system in a bit and will redit this post, do you mind buying clearance stuff / B grade (most are just returned stuff and nothing wrong with them at all and complete, others may just have a packaging cosmetically damaged (all 100% working parts) ? They do come with a warranty from OCUK and the manufacturer. Can save you a lot of money that way and you get a better system.



Ignore what I said above they don't really have anything worth getting in the clearance section at the moment which is ashame. Will price you up a new setup instead.


Do you care if it is a Sandy bridge or Ivy Bridge setup ?
 
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Personally I like SB over IVY, I like the higher clocks at lower temps and FSX loves clock speeds. My Rig in my SIG is only purchased for FSX reasons and the 2600K is overkill for FSX but I do use other apps that hyperthreading is nice to have.
 
fkb91e.jpg




I know it's over budget (by just under £50 after you take off the delivery costs) but I think it is worth spending more for the 8GB ram, better graphics card (Faster and larger VRAM) and larger faster hard drive, Case comes with fans, CPU cooler comes with everything you need even thermal paste and should allow a nice overclock on the 2500K, Motherboard has THX 7.1 sound with optical out too, USB 3, SATA3 6.0 Gb/s, PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots, etc all you need really and upto the latest specs currently available. PLUS it all worked out to look like a nice colour setup too which is nice if you like red and black theme. Just add a keyboard you like really a good one will start at £10.


Case review here for the Thermaltake VK60001W2Z Element S Case - Black. More pics showing it better too.

http://tech-reviews.co.uk/reviews/thermaltake-element-s-vk60001w2z-pc-case/


http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model_gallery.aspx?id=C_00001398
 
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Thanks for the spec Purgatory. Really like the look of that case; I wouldn't normally look above £30-35 for a case but it looks very smart, especially with the 230mm fans.


I'd like to ask again though, are fan controllers worth a purchase? (E.g. a 5 fan controller for £25?)
 
Naah fan controllers are not worth it mate you can do it all off the motherboard and most fans are fine even to run at full 12v and not noisy now. You have to also remember this case also comes with good fans so worth the extra because you don't have to add more cost by adding fans to a cheaper case and as you said it really looks good (I was surprised at the price for how well laid out it is inside too). I think it's a good value case and very smart looking,also people/sites reviewing it seem to agree they love the cable management and it keeps the system cool too.
 
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No point having the asrock mobo as FSX doesn't support SLI to my knowledge anyway. I shall edit in a spec in a bit

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM £161.99
1 x EVGA GeForce GTX 460 Superclocked FTW 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (01G-P3-1363-KR) £124.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) £65.99
1 x OCZ ZS Series 550W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller - Black £49.99
1 x Corsair Vengeance Blue Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9B) £44.99
1 x Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard - Retail (JQD-00006) £29.99
1 x Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940/AM2/AM2+/AM3/LGA775/LGA1155/LGA1156/LGA1366) £24.12
1 x OcUK 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £15.98
Total : £648.02 (includes shipping : FREE).



The Z9 case comes with four 120mm fans, fan controller, digital temp display and cable management (P4/8 extension lead included). It has dust filters etc as well, it has its quirks but there is a lot to like for the price :)

Ivybridge uses less power and has a better IGP (more on this later) and is needed for the PCI-E 3 slot to function at full speed. I've used the SB CPU to keep within your budget, the Z77 mobo is for a single GPU setup and the lucidMVP software uses the IGP to boost your GPU. Intel quicksync will use the IGP to help boost video encoding tasks if the software supports it. 8GB of RAM is ample for gaming.

I've used the 460 but a 560ti or the 448 version of it would be better, obviously that's more cash though. Seeing as your monitor is "low res" the 460 will have an easier time, I own one they are a good budget gaming GPU. 1TB HDD has plenty of space for the OS, FSX and it's addons. The keyboard might seem expensive but it's a popular gaming keyboard, you can use a cheaper one if you want to redirect funds elsewhere.

I've done quite a few similar builds and I got every single one to 4.4Ghz minimum with that CPU,case and heatsink. Hope this helps, if you like flight sims can i suggest you look at the DCS sims (A-10 and blackshark) they arent arcade games but hardcore military sims :)
 
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FSX doesn't support SLI or CFX it never has and never will too, I picked that motherboard because it is a good quality motherboard for the price and does everything he needs and soundwise too. Also it has a good Power Phase Design for overclocking. Not like anything else in that price range I saw on OCUK. Check the £100 range of motherboards on sale and you will see what I mean if you compare specs and quality of the components used on the motherboard. I spent almost 2 hours researching this for him as a fan of FSX too. This setup is the best price and quality setup OCUK has, I'm looking at quality of the components too, it is easy to add the cheapest of each part and make a super cheap system but how reliable will it be over time and will their be any compatability problems.. I know these parts will all work together with no problems from personal experience.


Also this board supports:-

- Supports AMD Quad CrossFireX™ , 3-Way CrossFireX™ and CrossFireX™
- Supports NVIDIA® Quad SLI™ and SLI™


http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-061-AK


So in the future he could add another card if he needed it for other games or applications that can make use of SLI or CFX.
 
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I'm aware of the mobos fella, I help with specs a fair bit on here. My build/spec was to the budget he stated £650. If you are spec'ing your own rig or similar to it, I can understand you being a lil defensive. These are just opinions and suggestions, the OP needs to decide whats best for him.

The asrock mobo you spec'd is mATX so if he did use SLI or Xfire the cards are closer together (bad for temps). This also usually means the other PCI slots on the mobo are blocked as well, once the second card is added. Saying that even if you use a ATX sized mobo, in a midi tower case the second card would sit close to the PSU which isnt ideal either for temps on the GPU. Also the rule of thumb was 650W for dual 560tis or 6950s on sandybridge, the 448 is a cut down 570 so will use more "Juice" than the normal 560ti.

As FSX doesn't support SLI I don't see the point of spending the extra. I've spec'd the asrock mobos in some threads, I do love the look of the mobo and it has plenty of features. I just don't feel it's needed here, the GB mobo i spec'd has a 3 year warranty he can still overclock with it just fine, by deciding to only use a single GPU you don't have to spend more on the PSU. If i was to spend anymore on my spec I would put the cash towards the GPU or the ivybridge CPU......that's my opinion bud

Brief GB mobo review.....spoiler the i5 2500K made it to an OC of 4.7Ghz
 
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honosuseri said:
These are just opinions and suggestions, the OP needs to decide whats best for him.
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I agree mate... but if you were to build a system say for yourself out of the 2 above (mine and yours), don't you agree the slightly under £50 extra is worth it for my setup ? Look at it if you were purchasing for yourself. I think mines a pretty good setup :-

honosuseri said:
If i was to spend anymore on my spec I would put the cash towards the GPU or the ivybridge CPU.
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Much better graphics card .. faster and has more memory for larger FSX textures.

Better PSU. Higher wattage.. (Will help with any future upgrades and give the PSU space to breath and stay cooler and quieter)

Better CPU cooler.

Branded DVD Writer. LG drive.

Better case I think my case I picked is nicer to look at and looks better spaced inside, the PSU sits in its own area not near the motherboard.

The Asrock has THX 7.1 Sound which I know sounds pretty decent for motherboard sound, this is coming from someone that always uses sound cards. Check my sig ;).


I still think my setup will make him smile and he will fall in love with it once it is all put together, yours will look like frankenstein's monster :D.


Kidding apart I know mate what you are saying, personally I think spending the almost £50 extra makes it a good value buy and your setup is really you get what you pay really... No feel good factor if you know what I mean.

People have had the 2500k and that motherboard upto 4.8Ghz-5.0Ghz without any problems if the CPU is good of course. Really depends on the silicon lottery when you buy a CPU that we all have to play as overclockers. Even a 4.5Ghz overclock on any motherboard and 2500k cpu is good and should not be seen as a bad overclock.
 
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The budget was £650 not £700 or over, as close to £650 was asked for. So I have done my best to balance the build to his needs for the price. You didn't include the keyboard either so you will be even more over budget ;)

I'm not convinced your PSU is man enough to SLI the 560ti 448. If it can you are stressing it to the max. I already said if he wanted to spend more he could up the 460 to the 560Ti.

Case is personal preference, the Z9 is a good case (i own one i know) you get more with it than the thermaltake case but each to their own. Your cooler only has 4 heatpipes and is more than the gelid (i also own one) which is a good 4 pipe, quiet cooler. Your optical drive is slightly faster but I would have used the Liteon 124 (yes i own this too) as it can have its firmware flashed to make it a 524 unlocking the extra features.

Don't compare my spec to frankensteins monster by being just random parts slapped together ;)
 
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honosuseri said:
Don't compare my spec to frankensteins monster by being just random parts slapped together ;)
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I'm not saying random parts it's well thought out I see what you have done there, but it's fugly :p...


Yes I wouldn't SLI 2 560ti 448 cores to anything apart from a 750W PSU. Reason the 600W PSU is if in the future he wants the fastest single GPU card or adds more hard drives etc he has the power to do it easily. I like the corsair PSUs I have not had one cause a problem for me and people I know that own them.


Case is personal preference as you said and 100% agree with you same with keyboards too.
 
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