FSX - New PC Advice

[kilo delta]

I'm suprised that you've had performance issues with the QX9770. Have you overclocked your chip? I'm running mine @4GHZ (it'll go much higher with a good liquid cooling setup, but I don't want to go down that route again). I'm getting ~30 fps (locked at 30) everywhere running at a resolution of 2560x1600 and AA/AF at 8x.
Only city that really taxes this system is Aerosoft's London X.
I've yet to test out the ATi HD4870X2 and GTX280 cards personally (as I've been out of work for the last few months due to health issues), but my colleagues swear by the 4870X2.
:isadizzy:

 

[DennyA]

I don't have performance issues with the 9770 (at 3.6GHz). But turn up the settings and traffic at Boeing Field and fly low towards Seattle. You get 30 fps consistently?

In 98% of the rest of the world, the 9770 manages 30 fps. But not Seattle and a couple of the other crazily detailed cities.

 

[Bradburger]

Firstly, thanks to all for their input and advice.

I've been taking stock of what's been said here and on the the various hardware forums on the web, and as with everything in life, the advice is always conflicting and my head is still spinning! :isadizzy:

As far a the new i7 cpu's/chip/DDR3 RAM, it seems the general feeling is that at the moment there is little in performance gain as far as gaming goes, and the extra cost is not really justified. However, it seems that if you don't plan on upgrading for another 2-3 years or more (and with the way the economy is at present who knows if some people will be able to afford upgrades in a few months time or so) and you want to be as future proof as possible, then the i7 is the way to go for sure.

As for GFX cards, I've taken notes of Ted's comments about how the HD4870X2 outperforms the GTX280, although DennyA seems to suggest otherwise in FSX, so I'm still not sure which to go for! If I was to go ATI, it seems there is no need to go to the extra expense of the X2, because as DennyA points out, FSX doesn't use it's second GPU, but as an alternative, go for the HD4870OC instead as Ted suggests.

Having said that, I see that ATI are planning to release the RV790 chip soon, which has a higher core clock amongst other things, and should give a significant boost to FSX performance should it not?.

A bit more about it here: -

http://www.techpowerup.com/75685/AMD...ck_Planned.htm

With this in mind, do I hold on till it's released, and at the same time take the plunge and be as futureproof as possible (if there is such a thing!) and go i7?

Cheers

Paul

 

[kilo delta]

There's never a right time to build/buy a computer as there is always something new on the horizon. Go with the HD4870 card....it's much cheaper than the GTX280/HD4870X2 and should provide sufficient pleasure for any game that you choose to run I'd recommend that you hold off on the i7 rig for the foreseeable future....at least until i7 chip's and DDR3 memory stabilise in price, and for any bugs with the X58 boards to be sorted out.

 

[txnetcop]

Hey Paul, if you have the patience to wait I think the Gigabyte and ASUS X-58 boards are very good. Denny has a good point about getting the most you can to run FSX over cities like Seattle, New York, and Tokyo.

I honestly don't have a problem running in the 30s just about everywhere with my E8400 X-48 rig and all sliders right but I OC'd mind to 3.8GHz and run an HIS HD4870OC (that by the way is faster than the standard 280GTX in almost everything I run-I know because I have tested against the 280GTX) and the guys at TechCorp and I believe it has better graphics appeal.

I also highly recommend the ATI HIS HD4850 ICE-Q4-it has the same engine as the 4870 and runs clocked a little higher than the standard 4870...the great part is that it is $100 cheaper and runs FARCRY, COD4, BIOSHOCK at higher speeds that the Nividia GTX260 and standard 4870.

In all the tests we ran with 17Core vs Core2Duo and Core2Quad the margin of victory was not that much at this time, but later i7Cores are gonna be killers so gear up for it and get a good X58 motherboard and buy the cheapest i7 availabile in anticipation of the better releases later. DDR3 memory is now very cheap.

For all of us who run X38s, X48s, P35, and P45s they are still excellent gamers and will be around for a long time to come thanks to fast, very overclockable E8600s, Q9550-9650s and the QX cores.
Ted

 

[fcfcfc]

Motherboard

I am new to this forum and found the suggestions/advice really useful.

I am planning on using either the E8500 or E8600 with 4GB but am rather confused by the wide range of motherboards on the market. Does anyone have a recommendation or suggestion of what features to look for?

Is it worth considering the AMD Phenom x4 9950?

I am a little wary of rushing into the new i7.

Does x-plane 9 require very different hardware for best frame rates?

 

[Bradburger]

Hey Paul, if you have the patience to wait I think the Gigabyte and ASUS X-58 boards are very good. Denny has a good point about getting the most you can to run FSX over cities like Seattle, New York, and Tokyo.

I honestly don't have a problem running in the 30s just about everywhere with my E8400 X-48 rig and all sliders right but I OC'd mind to 3.8GHz and run an HIS HD4870OC (that by the way is faster than the standard 280GTX in almost everything I run-I know because I have tested against the 280GTX) and the guys at TechCorp and I believe it has better graphics appeal.

I also highly recommend the ATI HIS HD4850 ICE-Q4-it has the same engine as the 4870 and runs clocked a little higher than the standard 4870...the great part is that it is $100 cheaper and runs FARCRY, COD4, BIOSHOCK at higher speeds that the Nividia GTX260 and standard 4870.

In all the tests we ran with 17Core vs Core2Duo and Core2Quad the margin of victory was not that much at this time, but later i7Cores are gonna be killers so gear up for it and get a good X58 motherboard and buy the cheapest i7 availabile in anticipation of the better releases later. DDR3 memory is now very cheap.

For all of us who run X38s, X48s, P35, and P45s they are still excellent gamers and will be around for a long time to come thanks to fast, very overclockable E8600s, Q9550-9650s and the QX cores.
Ted

Ted and all.

Thanks again for all the input and advice.

I've been looking into going the Core i7 route, and with a bit of tweaking to the rest of the spec, it actually doesn't come out quite as expensive as I thought when compared to a Core 2 Quad system.

Here's the system I've put together so far:

Intel Core i7 940 2.93Ghz (Nehalem) (Socket LGA1366) - Retail

Acer G24 Widescreen Gaming LCD Monitor - Orange/Black

Gainward ATI Radeon HD 4870 "Golden Sample" 1024MB GDDR5 TV-Out/Dual DVI/HDMI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Intel X58 (Socket 1366) PCI-Express DDR3 Motherboard

G.Skill 6GB DDR3 NQ PC3-10666C9 1333MHz (3x2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 (F3-10666CL9T-6GBNQ)

Akasa Omega Aluminium Case - Black (No PSU)

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Professional Series 7.1 Sound Card (70SB088600000)

Corsair TX 750W ATX2.2 SLI Compliant PSU

Creative Gigaworks T40 Series II 2.0 Speaker System (51MF1615AA003)

Samsung SpinPoint F1 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103UJ)

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (WD6401AALS)

Logitech Cordless Desktop Pro 2400 - OEM

Scythe Card Reader & Floppy Drive - Black

Sharkoon Silent Eagle 1000 120mm Fan - 3/4 Pin

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g)

I don't think I'll be able to stretch to the the 965, but it seems that the 920 & 940 both overclock to 3Ghz + very well!

Cheers

Paul

 

[Bjoern]

I am planning on using either the E8500 or E8600 with 4GB but am rather confused by the wide range of motherboards on the market. Does anyone have a recommendation or suggestion of what features to look for?

I've been using Asus mainboards ever since my Athlon XP days and I've never had an issue with them.

I think for your price range, I can recommend the Asus P5Q Pro which offers very good performance and doesn't cost much.

 

[kilo delta]

Very nice system,Bradburger....let us know how you get on when you've fsx all loaded up

fcfcfc.....I've also never had a problem with Asus boards. I've great respect for Evga mobo's too...although the 790i Ultra has proven to be a bit of a at times. The E8500 is a great chip (I'd mine running at 4.4ghz without issue). Steer clear of the AMD processors as they just cannot compete yet with Intels offerings.

 

[fcfcfc]

motherboard

Thanks K-D and Bjoern.

I noticed that one of the 4780x2 cards comes with 2GB. Despite that fact that FSX would only be using one of the GPUs, would the extra GB still improve frame rates noticeably?

Also, am I better off using a core 2 duo rather than a core 2 quad?

And 64bit Vista is compatible with FSX and would allow more than 4GB of RAM?