New home built PC almost done

[modelr]

I'm finally building a new rig with some power to it. Hope to finally get to see some smoothness and views I see in the videos and screens I see posted. Just waiting for the rest of the components to be delivered in the next couple days.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5 AMD AM3+
Processor: AMD FX8350 8 core 4.0GHz 16 MB Cache Black Edition Unlocked
Corsair H100i Watercooling
RAM: Corsair Vengence 16GB DDR3 1866/15000
GPU: Gigabyte Geforce GTX 770 GV-H770 OC 4GB DDR5
PSU: Thermaltake M850W SMART Series
CoolMaster 922HAF Case
Pioneer Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Burner
3xSSHD 2x250GB & 1x128GB
1XSeagate 3TB SATA for scenery
WIN 7 Professional 64Bit OS


All of my main storage stuff is on external drives. Hoping this one works well. Will be used for P3Dv2.3 primarily, along with FSX and occasionally FS2004.

[manfredc3]

Nice configuration you are getting there.

For FSX I have always stayed away from AMD, but it is still looking loke a power monster of a rig, once put together. I'm particularly jealous of your 3 SSD's.
I have a similar case (HAF32) and am very happy with it. Coolermaster does make some great cases.

I am sure you will have as much fun putting the parts together, as it was sorting out the parts you wanted.

Keep us posted on your results running the simulators.

[wombat666]

Nice to see another member of the team having a go at his own build!!!

Good thinking with the SSD setup.
Take your time and ****, I always enjoy the building process.
Hope you have plenty of cable ties!

[modelr]

Thanks wombat and Manfred.

Actually, I built my last three boxes over the years, I just never had the money for the horsepower until now.

The last pieces of hardware arrives today, so I can start assy. The OS will arrive tomorrow.

I need to get some info on which SSHDs to load the OS and which to load the Flightsims. Never used SSHDs before. I've used thumbdrives, basically the same, but those are just for transferring files and putting music on for portability. I read somewhere not to defrag SSHDs. How about compressing files. Can that be done? I always run my standard hard drives in compression mode to get more room on them.

I just got the hardware I have set out to install, and I found I miss typed the SSHD sizes. I have an Intel 520 series at 180GB, A Samsung 840EVO at 250GB, and a Toshiba Q series Pro at 256GB. The prices on these have really come down in the last year. I paid $199.99 for the 180GB drive last year, and only paid 139.99 for the Toshiba 256Gb, and 149.99 for the Samsung 250GB last week. All three were bought at Best Buy, so I'm sure they can be found for less at some of the bigger computer stores such as Newegg or Tiger Direct, or pcRush, which is where I got some of the major/main hardware.

I will have other questions as I get ready to fire it up, but first thing I need to know is which drive should I load the OS on, the 180GB, or one of the 250GB drives?

Thanks in advance for any help.
Don

[wombat666]

I'm using the Samsung 840EVO drives on my system, great drives and excellent value.
Might I suggest you run your OS on yourt 180GB Intel 520, and use the 250GB drives for Flight Sims.
SSD drives are not 'defragged' in the usual way, it does them no good at all, sorry, no idea of compressing them, I think it is possible but I'll pass that question on to one who knows better than I.
My OS and the usual programs take up 247G on a 500G drive, so you should be able to get the basics of your OS on 180G, including security and MS Office if you use that sort of thing, while a fairly well stocked FSX will run on 250G with space to spare.

[modelr]

I'm using the Samsung 840EVO drives on my system, great drives and excellent value.
Might I suggest you run your OS on yourt 180GB Intel 520, and use the 250GB drives for Flight Sims.
SSD drives are not 'defragged' in the usual way, it does them no good at all, sorry, no idea of compressing them, I think it is possible but I'll pass that question on to one who knows better than I.
My OS and the usual programs take up 247G on a 500G drive, so you should be able to get the basics of your OS on 180G, including security and MS Office if you use that sort of thing, while a fairly well stocked FSX will run on 250G with space to spare.

Thanks for that info, wombat. The last hardware part just arrived, so assy is started. OS should be here tomorrow evening, so the weekend will be the "fun" part.

[fsafranek]

I went with the Corsair H100i as well. It's a bit scary the first time you power her up with no "for sure running" fan on the CPU but it does work. She runs very cool and really really quiet (especially now since I swapped out the stock radiator fans for a pair of Quiet SP120s.

[manfredc3]

OS on the 180GB SSD, for sure. It's more than enough for that. Use the Samsung for The flight simulator. as it's slightly faster than the Toshiba, and the 3rd one for other programs. The scenery files can go on the HDD.

If you have questions as you go, just ask and we will be happy to share our experience.

[modelr]

Thanks for the info. The OS arrives this afternoon. Looking forward to getting it working. Then I will have to get the new numbers from some of the payware companies since they are going to a new computer. Especially P3D! Will FSX cause any problems? How do we "activate" it now? My copy is old, original Deluxe. I have the SPs downloaded and copied to disk, and separate Acceleration.

[wombat666]

Just enter your user codes as before.
No changes that I know of and I'm a chronic re-installer!

[jandjfrench]

Hi modelr,
Just my thoughts here. Windows and FSX, as all programs do, load into RAM and run from there. While FSX is running, additional data as needed, is loaded into RAM from a drive. Putting your scenery on an SATA HD doesn't seem to be the way to go here.
I recommend putting both Windows and FSX, including scenery, on the fastest SSD. Most likely this would be "C", for which System Protection is on by default, but enable it on any drive that that has FSX files. If you do any work with huge files, video for instance, don't have them on the same drive as FSX or Windows; the protected files can be quickly overwritten.
As a rule of thumb, put anything that gets modified a lot or doesn't need the speed of an SSD on the HD.
Good luck.
Jim F.

[mjrhealth]

Just install windows on the HD and FSX on the EVO it rocks. Who cares if windows takes 30s to boot, having FSX on its own drive wil give you lots of room and having windows on a HD will not slow down FSX. I do hope you got the Black Edition of CPU as you will need to overclock it than you will see lots of improvement. I actually have FSX global installed on a seperate SSD to fsx to free up some room on the EVO.

[modelr]

WOW!!! Just finished the first flight around the patch at my home airport here in Iowa, using Megascenery Earth Iowa on a NETWORK drive in my old computer, basic load of FSX before installing SP1, just to get everything unpacked. Flying a default Cessna 172, at dusk, with the default settings, and it is glass smooth! Then I went in and turned up the frame limit to 45fps, moved the couple of sliders that were not all the way to the right, (most all were,) and took another pass around the patch. 45fps, solid. I could not get a steady 15fps in the same plane/area before. Even the plane handled better. Did I say WOW!!?? Now to install Acceleration.

[wombat666]

Great!
Nothing like a happy Flight Simmer.

[boz]

Hello Modelr,

Congradulations on your computer build. What I'm curious about is your total investment for the hardware involved. No need to itemize each part but your total cost to build your PC. Thanks

Boz

[trucker17]

Very nice setup.
A little time and money, and you can have a great system....
You should see a vast improvement in you system now.

[modelr]

Hello Modelr,

Congradulations on your computer build. What I'm curious about is your total investment for the hardware involved. No need to itemize each part but your total cost to build your PC. Thanks

Boz

I really wasn't keeping track, but I did keep the receipts. This is what happens when the better half gives you her credit card and says "You are going to so owe me!"

This does not include gas for the shopping trips, but the receipts add up to $2,095.35USD That's just the box, no peripherals. Yeh, I'm going to owe her big time!

[modelr]

Very nice setup.
A little time and money, and you can have a great system....
You should see a vast improvement in you system now.

The improvement I saw on the first, and so far, only, test was out of this world difference/improvement.

After the first test, Windows update screwed up a bunch of stuff. Lost contact with three hard drives, deactivated Windows, and screwed up two other programs. Did a reset to the previous saved startup, got back the hard drives, but had to reinstall FSX. Still can't activate Windows, going to have to do it over the phone, I guess. It is still doing updates. Three or four years worth, I bet, even though the disk included SP1.

It's unplugged right now, we have big thunderstorms starting. I'm on the laptop right now. More delays in getting it going.