Some help for a friend of mine

**andersel** · December 2nd, 2012, 14:21

I have a friend that is trying to get further in to our wonderful hobby. His FS of choice is FSX but I'm hoping to get a little more here in the FS2002/FS2004 forum than I have receieved in the FSX Forum.

He wants to have a dedicated FS Desktop built, but has no idea where to start looking for a tech/builder to do the work. He lives in Eugene, OR. Question: Is there anybody out there that can make a recommendation for someone in the Eugene area that does (and is good at) this kind of work. He doesn't want a "super" computer. Just one that wil handle FSX and some add-on sceneries and aircraft handily. Any informationand/or advice will be greatly appreciated.

You can either post an answer to this post or send me a PM if there is an e-mail address or other sensitive information you can provide. Thanks

LA

**Wulf190** · December 2nd, 2012, 14:28

I would recommend that your friend try to build his own rig. I am sure friend has very little inclination to try his hand at it, but I would suggest it. It never hurts learning to build a system, and believe me; he doesn't have to learn anything about computer coding if he doesn't want to. (I don't and I have built between 8-10 computer systems and have performed a myriad of various upgrades). If you can manually add in scenery and aircraft in to any version of MS Flight Simulator you already know a lot about the windows OS.

Building a system isn't all that hard, and literally can be as simple as put socket A in to slot B. There are plenty of people here can give recommendations as to what hardware would be best for him and his budget.

The huge bonus building your own system is that you know exactly how it is running and what components you put in to it, not to mention you do not have to pay for any labor for building it.

Just my two cents.

***Sunny9850*** · December 2nd, 2012, 16:24

I agree. Before venturing out to find a shop to build a system for him, I suggest looking through a few of the available PC gamer magazines and find what specs and importantly hardware is mentioned there.
Some of them occasionally feature how to articles on building a PC which you might be able to find online.
With the money saved on labor he might be able to buy the next better graphic card. And that will pay off in the long run almost as much as knowing what is in the box.
If there is a Fry's store in Eugene he can probably get all the parts he needs in one location.

Cheers
Stefan

***Dangerousdave26*** · December 2nd, 2012, 17:10

The real problem with suggesting anything for a build for FSX is it is so dam picky.

Two people could have the very same hardware and get very different results.

I agree with Wulf190 and Sunny9850 that he should build his own system.

The problem becomes what parts to buy. How much do you spend for your return. There have been some nice on a budget systems that would run FSX middle of the road but those systems are maxed out. If you ever wanted to increase performance you would need a new system.

***Jagdflieger*** · December 2nd, 2012, 19:11

Andersel,

Have your friend sign up here at the Outhouse. He'll get the best advice first hand that way. If you've already talked him into it, have him check in at this thread and introduce himself.

***OBIO*** · December 3rd, 2012, 02:32

Building a system from scratch is not a big task....the hardest part is picking out the components and making sure they work well together to give the desired results. Back in 2010, I used a chunk of our tax returns.....just a tad over $1000....to build a very powerful system that runs FSX like crazy.....too bad FSX just feels cartoonish to me. Prior to this build, I had never built a system from scratch before.....I had done hard drive swaps, memory upgrades, a couple of power supply replacements.....but had not started with a bare case and added all the guts to it. Took me a couple of hours......but I triple triple triple checked every connection, every placement, every wire to make sure that when I powered the system up it did not go up in smoke.

Last spring, I ordered $2500 worth of parts to build my nephew's new gaming system. He saw a gaming system in a gaming magazine, wrote down the specs and sent them to me. That system retailed for close to $4500. For 2 grand less, I was able to give him a BETTER system with higher end parts. He loves the system and it runs everything he has thrown at it without a problem.

Beside saving money, the best part of building your own system is the warranties. You go to a big box store and buy a pre-fab system, you might get a 90-day warranty. But by buying the individual parts and building the system yourself, you get the warranties from the various manufacturers. My motherboard has a 5-year warranty, my hard drives have 5-year warranties, my RAM sticks have LIFE TIME warranties, power supply has a 3-year warranty.......you can't get those long span warranties in a pre-fab system.

Tim

***Sunny9850*** · December 3rd, 2012, 07:28

I happened to see a copy of PCGamer at the gas station while getting my morning java and on the last page they have a rather nice system specd' out with the manufacturers and models of the individual components. That box comes in at $1200 as I recall.
Even if you friend decides not to do the building himself....this would definitely be a good reference to take to a local store to see what they would charge for a build box with identical specs.

I think I am going to build one myself based on these specs....

Cheers
Stefan

***capun*** · December 3rd, 2012, 08:30

Have him check MaximumPC magazine, they have a website. They have reccomendations for components and also do build-up systems from the low-end to the outrageous no-holds barred systems. Their mid-range system build-ups are fairly decent performance-wise.

They originally had a different name (ended with "BS") and were a bit less influenced by their marketing department.