Flight Sim rig recommendations

MrFunex · 6 Jan 2023 at 09:35

All, I've recently caught the Flight Simulator bug, and it's terminal!

Currently have an Alienware 17R4 laptop (i7 6820HK, 32Gb, GTX1080) and play in VR on an Oculus Rift. This laptop has served me well for years, but Flight Sim is more than capable of besting it!

Any recommendations in the prebuilt systems - I was guessing at something like a Ryzen 5800X, coupled with a RTX3080? Or would a 12th gen Intel system provide a bit more futureproofing?

Budget? Err.. £1500-2000. The Gallium seems to offer good VFM, would it be worth getting a 58000X3D over the 5800X?

MrFunex · 6 Jan 2023 at 10:36

mickyflinn said:
What resoloution you gaming at ?

4k gaming is mainly gpu bound .

You can get a pc built for you and custom pick your parts, probable cost £100 to £150 going on previous posts.

Thanks Micky. Mainly gaming in VR, but when not, it’ll be in 1080p or 1440p

MrFunex · 6 Jan 2023 at 16:16

That’s really helpful thanks. I’ll have a look at the 7th gen Ryzens, but that’s a good starting system. I don’t mind building a PC myself, although I haven’t done for the last 10 or so years…

MrFunex · 8 Jan 2023 at 11:28

LeMson said:
Wait for the new 7000 x3d chips and look at MSFS performance, if you can wait that long, or go 5800x3d if needed right now

That’s the eternal problem isn’t it?! Got to take the plunge sometime. With the 7000 series pretty much here, a good call though.

Quartz said:
Don't forget to set aside several hundred for the stick / yoke, throttle, rudders, etc.

I know! I’ve got a joystick with a throttle and rudder action (twist the stick), which will be fine for the moment.

MrFunex · 24 Feb 2023 at 04:07

Well, thanks for all your help and suggestions - there was rather a lot of budget creep(!), but I bought some bits for a new PC in the end. Went with Intel.

13700K
Gigabyte RTX4090
64gb DDR5
ASUS Z790 motherboard
AIO 280mm CPU cooler
1000w PSU
A monstrous, filing cabinet of a case (Corsair Crystal 680X) with lots of RGB bits, most of which had to be moved because the graphics card is utterly humongous!

Unsurprisingly, it runs really nicely! I’ve not had the chance to run many benchmarks to compare with my old system, but 3DMark puts it at about 7x faster in raw speed. Flight Sim has everything turned up to ultra, and still gives 50-60fps! Great stuff!

MrFunex · 24 Feb 2023 at 16:43

j4ska said:
11700k and 6900xt gives me 70fps on ground, 100fps in the air on max settings in 1440p on DirectX 11 ( d12 for strange reason is tearing on with same fps), try turning Terrain Level of Detail to 50 (its like 100 after update) as there is literally no difference. Also you may need to adjust your windows settings to have more fps. Your setup is capable of doing 100-150fps easy with few tweaks

Yeah, perhaps cranking terrain LOD to 400 is a bit silly! :-)