Urgent insight needed for avid flight simulator fan

spot_the_mole

spot_the_mole

spot_the_mole

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Joined
7 Mar 2013
Posts
17
Completely new to this in every way imaginable. Basically wondering if I could get opinions from guys who clearly know more than me and could potentially teach me a few things along the way. I am wanting to construct my own pc on a budget, for one purpose really and that is to play fsx. I've been doing some reading around and I am aware that it is a pretty demanding program. I understand that it will not be possible to play it to its full potential on a shoe string budget and I am fine with that. Basically if you knowledgable guys out there could give me a hand and post what you believe to be a list of hardware parts that would be able to play fsx to anything over 3/4 of its potential at the cheapest price I can but still with everything working in harmony with each other I would be ever so grateful. I don't mind sourcing from a number of places, its been my birthday this week and I've wanted to get myself up and running for ages, the quicker I can the better. I'm itching to take to the skies and look at something other than a box and a few lines. The nicer the experience can be the better. Thanks in advance.
 
8th Mar 2013, 13:32 #4
spot_the_mole
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Joined: Mar 2013
Posts: 3
I realise I won't be able to run it to the extent as some of the videos I've seen online but something that'll play it reasonably well I'm not expecting miracles. If I said a limit of about 500 what's the best I could get with it. I literally need everything pretty much except probably a monitor and peripherals.
 
As Flight Sim is pretty CPU-dependant, I'd suggest grabbing a decent Intel CPU, maybe an i3 - my FSX runs pretty smoothly on it. Go for Ivybridge if you can.
 
You can replace the HD 7850 with GTX 460 or drop down to the Intel i3 3225 or 3240 and drop out the CPU cooler,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - OEM £187.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7850 OC Windforce 2X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card w/ Nexuiz, Sleeping Dogs & Dirt Showd (GX-100-GI) £129.95
1 x Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £89.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) HDD £59.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £54.98
1 x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CML8GX3M2A1600C9) £41.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 612S CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £32.99
1 x BitFenix Merc Alpha Gaming Case - Black £29.99
Total : £641.96 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
spot_the_mole said:
In your opinion how well do you think that set up will run the game in terms of detail and settings?
Click to expand...

I'm able to get by on all-ultra settings (except weather), not sure about specific FPS however it does run smooth. I run an i3-2120 with an overclocked GTX 550Ti and it all seems ok.
 
 
Thank you very much that's such a big help to me. You think this would work out cheaper to do it that way or to buy a prebuilt system. Sorry for my ignorance :p totally new to all of this. Literally wouldn't know the first place to start.
 
prebuilt might be cheaper, although low quality parts tend to be used in prebuilts and you would have much headroom for expansion. you also get the satisfaction of self accomplishment from building you're own :) up to you though mate.
 
Thanks I know that's why I was thinking about building my own, especially when great guys like you are suggesting top quality parts. ;) although I think I made a tactical error and jumped in with both feet the other day buying a graphics card without researching fully :/ I've bought a sparkle nvidia geforce gt 640 1024mb ddr3, two questions if I can ask them, 'is this literally the worst purchase ever and it's a pile of **** haha? And also would that work with the components you listed above? Thanks in advance
 
Don't worry, I made the same mistake with my 550Ti. Schoolboy errors huh :P For decent gaming you'll want a GeForce GTX card, I wouldn't recommend a GT at all. Try and refund it, or sell it off. It would be compatible but wouldn't benefit you very much in terms of gaming :P number one thing to know with Nvidia cards is they don't get necessarily better as the model numbers increase - eg a GTX580 is better than a GT640 :P
 
Haha so basically its pretty pants then. So what makes the one you recommended better than the one I actually bought? With them both having around 1gb of memory? Leaves me a little bit confuzzled to say the least.
 
well first of all, graphics cards that have the same amount of GDDR5 memory don't necessarily perform the same. There are other factors to consider, such as GPU clock speeds, memory speeds, shader clock's etc etc etc... I know you're not too overly tech-savvy so I won't bombard you with information - but yes, the Radeon HD7850 is hugely better than the GeForce GT640. Just a quick google search will verify that ;)
 
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