I'm contemplating what to upgrade in order to get acceptable performance over dense city areas like LondonX and ManhattenX and also to get rid of the blurries on my photoscenery.
My current setup is a Dell XPS system with a Q6600 @2.4ghz, 4gb RAM, W7 Ultimate 32-bit, one 300gb and one 1TB drives and a 8600GT graphics card, ThemalTake 750W PSU.
I get a pretty solid 18fps (limited) in most places with just about any aircraft, except in really dense scenery areas. I'd like to be able to run the PMDG 747 out of Heathrow or just go near London in anything more than the default Cessna!
One option is to drop a tonne of money on a system that I feel would definitely meet my needs now and in the foreseeable future, but as I mostly flight sim it's hard to justify. That machine would be an i7-980X, 24gb RAM, GTX480 and a Velociraptor RAID array.
The other more attractive option is to just add to what I have.
My question is how effective would the following be in achieving better performance for photo scenery and in high density areas and would they work with my system?
1. ZOTAC GTX470
2. 2x300GB Velociraptors in RAID0 (possibly the 450/600GB drives with a SATA3 controller card)
I've tried a BFG 9800GT and BFG GTX295 cards in the past and my machine didn't like it at all - the GTX295 was actually slower and the 9800GT kept crashing, hence I'm reluctant to just go out and buy another card in the hope it might work.
My current setup is a Dell XPS system with a Q6600 @2.4ghz, 4gb RAM, W7 Ultimate 32-bit, one 300gb and one 1TB drives and a 8600GT graphics card, ThemalTake 750W PSU.
I get a pretty solid 18fps (limited) in most places with just about any aircraft, except in really dense scenery areas. I'd like to be able to run the PMDG 747 out of Heathrow or just go near London in anything more than the default Cessna!
One option is to drop a tonne of money on a system that I feel would definitely meet my needs now and in the foreseeable future, but as I mostly flight sim it's hard to justify. That machine would be an i7-980X, 24gb RAM, GTX480 and a Velociraptor RAID array.
The other more attractive option is to just add to what I have.
My question is how effective would the following be in achieving better performance for photo scenery and in high density areas and would they work with my system?
1. ZOTAC GTX470
2. 2x300GB Velociraptors in RAID0 (possibly the 450/600GB drives with a SATA3 controller card)
I've tried a BFG 9800GT and BFG GTX295 cards in the past and my machine didn't like it at all - the GTX295 was actually slower and the 9800GT kept crashing, hence I'm reluctant to just go out and buy another card in the hope it might work.