Ready to take the plunge into FSX

[Duckie]

Hi Good Folks,

I'm getting ready to take the plunge and would ask for some hardware advice. I have read through many of the threads in this forum section and elsewhere to try and prepare ahead the best I can.

I have a fairly good system but may need some upgrading to get a good result in sim.

What are the weaknesses that may be upgraded and or tweaked to improve performance?

Here are my current specs:

Windows 7 64bit Home Premium

Antec Nine Hundred II Mid Tower w/4 - 120mm Fans and 1 - 200mm Chimney Fan
Intel i7 920 2.67GHZ
ASUS P6T SE
6GB Corsair XMS 3 DDR3 1600 (PC-3-12800)
Noctua 1200 CPU Cooling Tower w/2 - 140mm fans
Sapphire Radeon Dual-X R9 270 2GB GDDR5
Corsair TX 750W PSU
WD 320GB 32bit SATA HDD
WD 500GB Black Caviar SATA x 2
Samsung SH-S223B Super-Multi DVD Burner
LITE-ON DVD ROM
ViewSonic 24" LCD VX2433

Any tips and suggestions would ne greatly appreciated

Thanks,
Steve

[txnetcop]

Steve the only change I would make is upgrade the CPU to an i7 960 3.2Ghz CPU.
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-960-P...el+Core+i7+970 $257.00 is nice cheap upgrade.

Your memory is sufficient for an overclock, but real performance would come from using this memory instead: http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Vengea...ords=DDR3+1800 You just can't beat the price at $88.00.

So for less than $400 you have a decent upgrade.

FSX is CPU intensive and you can easily overclock this to 3.8 or 4.0GHZ using the Overclocker's Guide.
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?...e=en-us&page=1

An example of the power of the i7 960 and FSX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LntAO3_FL3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AkyJ8yKaj8

Ted

[Duckie]

Hey Ted, thanks very much for the reply and recommendations. Just the kid of suggestions I was looking for.

Steve

[txnetcop]

The 1366 series CPUs and motherboards are still very powerful even my today's standards. Glad I could help
Ted

[Duckie]

Hey Ted, the link you posted re Corsair Vengeance memory led to Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1866 MHZ (PC3 15000) Desktop Memory.

According to the Corsair configurator and my MoBo specs I can use 1333, 1600 or 2000 MHZ in the Vengeance series. Since I already have 6MB of 1600 MHZ (2GB x 3), although not the Vengeance series, is there any real advantage to going to the Vengeance series aside from the increase of 2GB additional RAM (6GB vs 8GB) over what I already have? Would there be any real useable advantage in going to 12GB of 1600 Vengeance?

BTW, the i7 960 will be here Thursday!

Thanks,
Steve

[txnetcop]

Hey Ted, the link you posted re Corsair Vengeance memory led to Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1866 MHZ (PC3 15000) Desktop Memory.

According to the Corsair configurator and my MoBo specs I can use 1333, 1600 or 2000 MHZ in the Vengeance series. Since I already have 6MB of 1600 MHZ (2GB x 3), although not the Vengeance series, is there any real advantage to going to the Vengeance series aside from the increase of 2GB additional RAM (6GB vs 8GB) over what I already have? Would there be any real useable advantage in going to 12GB of 1600 Vengeance?

BTW, the i7 960 will be here Thursday!

Thanks,
Steve

Only a slight advantage...12GB over what you have buys you nothing in FSX. You can overclock up to 4+ Ghz with what you have. Although you may find that you don't need it to enjoy FSX. BTW I am not a big AMD fan but that particular card you have tested extremely well for the price when it came to benchmarks. The biggest problem I have with AMD cards is that their software does not give you enough options when tweaking for ultra fine graphics in FSX, P3D, and X-Plane 10. However I don't believe you should spend any more money for an upgrade. That card runs FSX very well.