New build for MS Flight Sim

FoxEye

FoxEye

FoxEye

Caporegime
Joined
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Cornwall
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! :)
 
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.
 
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.
 
Cheers for the spec :)

Would it be at all worth considering the 3850/70 as a way to save a bit of money?

Would I be correct to assume that the CPU is more important? Thus downgrading the graphics and putting the money saved towards a quad, might be a half-decent idea?

Or would I be nuts not to go for the 4850?
 
There seems to be a lot of contrary advice out there, but I plucked this quote from flightsim.com forums:

"...my buddy has the EXACT same system as me but he has a Q6600, at 3.63 ghz, and I have my E8400 at 4.5ghz, and if we but both of our CPUS to 3.0ghz, then he will get about 2frames/second more than me...."

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showpost.php?p=1209430&postcount=6

Doesn't really help me, however, since the E8400 and the Q6600 are the same price :D
 
Ok, he tells me now to lower the cost to £250. I told him it's not possible.

I guess if it comes to it I can downgrade the 4850 to a 3850, perhaps.

I'm hoping he'll change his mind, because £250 isn't going to buy him a whole lot :(
 
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