New build for MS Flight Sim

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

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Hey :)

My brother is looking to upgrade his machine (CPU/mobo/RAM/gfx), to get more from Flight Sim and his various add-ons for it.

His budget is about £300. I'll be ordering and assembling it for him.

I was initially thinking of a 4850 for the gfx, and at least 4 gig RAM.

What I'm unsure about is what CPU (dual or quad?) and how much RAM (4 or 8 gig?)

Is Intel on Intel still the best bang for buck atm? It's been a long, long time since I last looked into upgrading. (My own system is about 4 years old; I'm sorely tempted to stick a 4850 alongside my 3800X2.)

As for mobo, I'll be looking for something with no fans. Passive everything. Stable, reliable, but I'd like to avoid paying for premium features he won't use. Such as RAID.

Cheers in advance! :)
 
flight sim x tends to work better with higher clocked dual than quad as it doesn't really multicore that well .
 
I think if you want to future proof, quad core is probably a better investment. FSX has some way to go to get the best use out of quad cores but they are making efforts in that direction (article)
 
Right, i play a lot of flight sim, my current setup is

Quad Core Q9450 Overclocked to 3.6
4GB DDR3
Striker 2 Extreme
2x 9800GX2s (Quad SLI)
Windows Vista Ultimate

With SP1 and 2 installed, it still jitters and stutters on Ultra Settings maybe i could down them a bit but im sure it will still do it, the last post states about future proof, i agree, go with a quad core, you can always disable the 2 extra cores in the bios or via affinity in windows.

I just want to give you and your bro the heads up :)

Hope this helps
 
A lot will depend on the price difference between a good core2duo and a decent core2quad.

Tbh, I'm leaning towards duo ;)

I'm not sure about future proofing when it comes to PCs. I've always thought it better to buy what you need now, and upgrade when you have to.

Course it won't be my decision, it'll be his. But if he gets a duo he can always stick it on ebay if he opts for a quad later.

The link was interesting. It looks like they're trying to address threading in FSX, but there were no hard numbers or benchmarks to back up what they said, sadly.
 
slap ed said:
flight sim x tends to work better with higher clocked dual than quad as it doesn't really multicore that well .
Click to expand...

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Completely the opposite. Flight sim x is written for quads and performs much better on quads than duals so long as you install the latest patch which brought in many extra features to take advantage of quads.

Therefore for your budget, Q6600 all the way
 
Agreed^^

Remember Flight simulator is complex. it requires a lot of CPU usage, and this is where quad core comes in, as it can balence out the work load over 4 cores, example, physics would be one core, Scenery would be another core, ect ect

plus if you overclock a little it will be even better

so you have my full vote on Quad Core.
 
Depends on the realism settings, if its on hard it will restart the simulation, if its on easy you fly straight trough them, damage was included in FS2002 and current version (i think) but FS2002 had the code disabled due to the tragic even on 11/9/01, but there is software out there in which you can enable the code again to get a more realistic effect


Software i think is called. FS Damage
 
Leezy said:
300 quid to run flight sim on what settings very low? :P
Click to expand...
Well he plays it atm on, iirc, a single core CPU and an ATI 9600 card.

Whatever we put in is going to give him a huge boost, I would expect. Although he loves Flight Sim, £300 is still a lot of money to spend on a game ;)

£130 for the 4850.
£60 for the ram (?)

That only leaves £100 for the CPU and mobo combined... OK that's not enough.

At a push he might go to £350, but I'm fairly certain he won't spend £400. Well, I think his other half would probably have something to say about it :p

Can someone do me a quick favour? It's been so long since I built a PC I've totally forgotten how you pair up RAM speeds with FSB speeds. I notice the Intels are coming in 800, 1066 and 1333 FSB variants now, and I must admit I'm confused.
 
FoxEye said:
Well he plays it atm on, iirc, a single core CPU and an ATI 9600 card.

Whatever we put in is going to give him a huge boost, I would expect. Although he loves Flight Sim, £300 is still a lot of money to spend on a game ;)

£130 for the 4850.
£60 for the ram (?)

That only leaves £100 for the CPU and mobo combined... OK that's not enough.

At a push he might go to £350, but I'm fairly certain he won't spend £400. Well, I think his other half would probably have something to say about it :p

Can someone do me a quick favour? It's been so long since I built a PC I've totally forgotten how you pair up RAM speeds with FSB speeds. I notice the Intels are coming in 800, 1066 and 1333 FSB variants now, and I must admit I'm confused.
Click to expand...

you'll need a PSU too. never neglect to budget for the PSU in your main spec, its just as important as the mobo or CPU.
 
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