New computer recommendations?

[ndicki]

Let's say I have about £500 or so to spend - that's about E600 or US$800, which shows how badly the dollar has dropped - cheaper petrol though! - on a new computer.

I want it essentially to do the following:

Use Win XP SP3, as I want to use the MOS file editor, and don't want to arse about with dual-boot efforts and suchlike.
Run CFS3 in its currently most complex form, with lots of things happening, at sliders 5 and graphics settings as high as possible, with display size 1929x1200.

And do the other things computers can be expected to do.

So does anybody have any advice on what bits to get? Preferably using your own experience, and staying within the budget. Last time I asked this question, nobody took much notice of that last bit, which meant that I in turn, didn't take much notice of what was said...

[Human Drone]

Nigel, good luck!

If your monitor and other things (such as DVD drive and other components that may be "transferable", case & what not), I can tell you that my rig (see my siggie) indeed runs on all 5's and does so well -60 FPS stutter-free. You very likely only need 8 MB of RAM, and I can hope some of the components I bought have dropped in price as they have been surpassed by the Ivy Bridge processor and the newer GTX cards. But US$800, well, I don't know... My rig needed min. 850W power supply, and you probably don't have that now. So, are you talking, say, Mobo, graphics card, processor, RAM & Power supply, or do you need more than that?

ETA: I just looked at the I7-2500K processor (which may are using for CFS and FSX) and it's $90 cheaper than the 2600K. They say it overclocks well, and a good Mobo for it would be cheaper, too. Were you planning to overclock it? At least the $90 savings would buy you a good aftermarket processor cooler... But yeah, I'd consider the i7-2500K kind of a minimum processor upgrade, if you're like me you plan on having the new machine for a while...

& yeah, I have not forgotten the Franz Stigler thing, for which efforts I thank you again. Real life has been a bear for the last few months...

Best Regards,

Tom

[ndicki]

Hello - and thanks!

I can transfer a fair few things, so I'm looking at the bare architecture - motherboard, processor, RAM, video card and power supply. The rest I can transfer off an old one or know what I want anyway.

The thing is, it's a lot more confusing than it was 8 or 9 years ago when I built this one - then, you simply looked for the best P4 processor, and went from there!

Now, I have understood that CFS3 runs on one single processor core, no matter how many cores you have - so is there any advantage in having 4 rather than 2? Meanwhile, W XP accepts max 4GB of RAM, though it'd be useful to have greater capacity for later on.

[rocketred]

for ones cheap rebuilds and onward , assuming one has no time to build it


http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=6&sel=Detail%3B163_1173_24023_24023

[Human Drone]

Nigel,

I thought Windows XP SP3 was available in a 64 bit flavor. If so, then it should recognize more that 4 MB of RAM, but maybe I'm wrong.

As to the 4 core processor, I don't know if you could get a 2 core processor much cheaper. I'm not all that versed in the too-many choices out there - you sound like me when I started researching my build! But I figured it's 64 bit going forward, so best to get a good platform. The 2500K gets you almost as much as the 2600K, (Make sure it's a K if you want to overclock it), but without the hyperthreading, which CFS3 and even FSX don't use, anyway.

Are you sure that MOS editor needs Windows XP? In Windows 7, you can run programs in XP compatibility mode, either SP2 or SP3. Can anyone else help us out here? Another possible consideration is that Microsoft will discontinue Windows XP support (i.e. security patches, etc.) at some point, I thought it was next year...

Best,

Tom

[rbp71854]

The MOS editor will work in win7. Just make sure to install net framework 1st, then directx 9.0 sdk, then download mdxredist.zip from MS and run mddxredist.msi to wake up the mos editor.

[greycap.raf]

Definitely no Windows 7 - that means no _s.dds support, compatibility mode or not. I learned the hard way. I wouldn't risk on anything else than XP 32 bit to be certain.

But 600€... buy my current motherboard, RAM and processor for 300€ and add a good graphics card. ;) Seriously though, if you were in Finland I'd sell this to you as I'm upgrading anyway this summer. My own plan will include an i7 2600K (around 300€), 8GB of DDR3 RAM (around 50€) and a new motherboard (around 100€) which brings the total to 450-500€ and I'm knowingly getting an overkill machine.

So perhaps you could do with i5 2300 (around 200€), the same memory and motherboard and end up with a total of 350-400€ which would allow you to get a GeForce GTX560 (around 200€) to top it off. In case you need a new PSU too downgrade the graphics card to a GTX550 and you're still in the budget.

[Human Drone]

Side question - what are "_s.dds files" & why can't they be dealt with in Windows 7? Are we certain there is no way around this one?

Just curious,

Tom

[greycap.raf]

They're the textures that enable specular shine on aircraft. Not to be confused with the _r.dds textures which give bare metal aircraft their mirror-like reflections.

It's a non-issue for ATI users as ATI dropped specular support years ago but Nvidia users can still enjoy CFS3 as it was made to look. I bought Windows 7 myself last summer and intended to replace XP completely with it because as they say, anything that works in XP works in 7. After installing CFS3 it hit me like a fist in the face, the speculars were gone, the terrain looked flat with very lackluster lighting, it was like a return to 2006 and my Radeon 9800. At first I thought it was an issue with the latest drivers and managed to find an older set - still the same result. Found an older yet package - no, still no speculars. I tried every possible compatibility mode, XP SP2, XP SP3, Vista, no joy. Then I decided to bite the bullet, swap the hard drive for an empty one I had floating around and installed XP on it, put in the latest Nvidia drivers, installed CFS3, transferred my own mods into it and when I saw my Spitfire gleaming over the landscape lit by the rising sun I knew that the marketing speech about everything working in Windows 7 was indeed nothing more than marketing speech...

I have no idea why it doesn't work. It just doesn't, I sure would like it to but it doesn't. There are people who don't believe me because they think CFS3 looks just fine in Windows 7 but they have never witnessed the speculars to begin with.

[Human Drone]

So you mean, here I sit with this ultra mean machine and I'm not getting specular reflections? If so, I probably jumped right over them! I had to dial my old machine back so hard I probably never saw then to begin with. then I get this bad boy, and it doesn't use them, super NVIDIA card or not.

As my brother-in-law says, "Boy, if that ain't a kick in the teeth!" Now you can bet I'll be looking, let me find a nice, shiny P-51 or something here... <later> OK, either the sun ain't out (it was) or you're right! Blast it, I never noticed that before!

And now, back to our regularly scheduled thread...

[hairyspin]

Nigel, the old adage about video cards and CFS3 is true: stick with nVidia, a 1GB GTS 450 for instance at around £82. Gross overkill for CFS3, but SF2 might like it.

As far as cpu goes, the faster the clock speed the better, so a 3.3GHz i5 processor (£161) is a better bet than a 2.8GHz i7 (£226) for CFS3. Nobody's mentioned AMD yet, but again go for speed rather than umpteen cores. Multi-core processors are fine and dandy if your programs support them, but at least XP will happily run the OS on one core and CFS3 on another, which is one reason why a duo-core is way faster than your P4.

I like Gigabyte motherboards, their GA-H77-D3H is around £80: a full-size ATX board with plenty room for expansion.

64-bit XP is a rare and unusual beast and (I'm told) not best suited to games like CFS3, so buying more than 4GB of memory is wasted on ordinary XP SP3, even if your new mobo supports up to 32GB! Just make sure you buy memory in matched pairs, that's what the chipsets like these days. 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory for it is about £45, slower memory will be a little cheaper.

Get a jolly good psu! A quality 500W is actually better than el cheapo 600W and can supply much more current to a hungry GPU. A Corsair Builder Series 500W is about £46 and should last instead of expire after 13 months. It should also be big enough to run this lot.

Finally a 1TB Western Digital HD is £77 for a SATA III version, just a fiver more than the SATA II: worth it, I'd say. That just about wipes out your £500, but get at least one 5" cooling fan to go in the case. All these prices came from scan.co.uk where I bought my current rig's bits and all include vat.

None of this is an absolute recommendation, etc etc: it's not my money after all, but I'd throw any CD drive away and buy a new DVD burner, they cost washers and good burning software is available for free. (I use Ashampoo Burning Studio 2010)

Hope this helps! :mixedsmi:

EDIT: make sure the cpu comes with a cooling fan or you'll have to add that on...


@Bob: I've got the .MOS editor running on Win7 64-bit but the only thing it won't do is open any actual .mos files...! Has anyone successfully edited a .mos file in Win7 64-bit yet?? Other than that I love Win7 deeply and shall not be parted therefrom!

[Cuttles]

Confirming XP 64 does exist (have a new disc), someone in NY state (I think) was e-Baying them without the original box for something like $60-80 (about a year ago). Had a few.

Not tried CFS3 on it yet, as have to build a rig.

Tried the XP 64 on a recent Acer i5 laptop with 1GB AMD graphics and was a disaster as AMD drivers not made for XP64..............had to re-load to Win7 (what the Acer came with).


Probably laugh, in meantime running ETO Ok on the Acer (in the meantime), with mods:

via max. 8 GB RAM, both IoBit Advanced System Care and Game Booster (service reducers and boosters) and Partion Wizard (use it to put 10+ drives in and run all versions of CFS3 on the one 650 GB drive; shrink drives including C for max. disc performance).

It can also run a recent 21/22 inch Acer monitor (not in 3D mode). Laptop monitor good enough for doing mods and runs game ok.

Also 32BG flash drive in 'Readyboost' mode seems to help disc. speed and can run aircraft 'slider' up to 4.


Planned is an Intel 520 SSD, maybe even i7 2700K (can plug in). (should help)



Probably sounds crazy, but this is nearly a 'cheap Alienware' (and beats a P4 we have with new Gigabyte Mobo with onboard Intel graphics). And is silent.
(Sorry...should n't have taken up your space with this.....)

[ndicki]

Lots of good info up there - thanks, and especial thanks to Tom and Rene, who have given me the right kind of architecture to check through. As it is really a CFS3 machine, this sort of consideration is important. SF2 will run on pretty well anything, although the latest release is DX10 only. So I'm not getting it.

W XP 32 is a given - I already have it, and do not want to move to either XP 64 or W7 for reasons given above. Once/if the problems are solved, then it won't cost me any more to upgrade later, anyway.

[Human Drone]

I'm glad to provide a little help anyway. My thoughts re: i7-2500K is that many have easily gotten this one to around 4 GHz just on air; my i7-2600K (just adds hyperthreading and 1Ghz base speed to the 2500) has been stable at 4.1 Ghz and 1.05V target for a long time, I haven't even tried pushing it yet.

But another reason for beefing up this beast is for engineering analysis & stuff, so, yeah, it's probably a bit of overkill for CFS3 - but then, i haven't gotten into scenery budgets and what not - still learning...

I sure hope you can get a good box together!

Best,

Tom

[ndicki]

OK, going by what Tom says above, take a look at this. It's in French, but all the geeky bits are reasonably understandable I hope!

http://www.grosbill.com/4-intel_i5_2550k_3_4ghz_6mo_cache_turboboost_socket_ lga1155_bx80623i52550k_-156118-informatique-_processeur

http://www.grosbill.com/4-gigabyte_ga_b75m_d3v_-159680-informatique-_carte_mere

http://www.grosbill.com/4-asus_nvidia_geforce_gtx_550ti_di_1gd5_-144617-informatique-nvidia

http://www.grosbill.com/4-corsair_cx500_v2_-142303-informatique-alimentation_80plus

http://www.grosbill.com/4-kingston_hyper_x_grey_xmp_x2_4go_2x_2_go_pc12800_1 600_mhz_khx1600c9d3x2k2_4gx_-136509-informatique-memoire_ddr3

Can someone take a look and let me know if I'm going to look a twit when I go into the shop and say I want all this?

[Human Drone]

I can't do an exhaustive critique, but it looks like for around 70 euros more you could get an i7-2600K processor. Times may be tight, and I understand, but that processor will get you further down the road, FWIW. Others should weigh in, though. The Kingston RAM looks like good stuff, and if that Gigabyte board is new it is probably more than sufficient. I'm not sure if you have enough power with 500W, check that carefully (I'm running 1050W against 850W required), and yes, I have a good Corsair PSU as well. Are you holding off on a hard drive for now?

We're pullin' for you!

Tom

[ndicki]

http://www.grosbill.com/3-processeur-intel_core_i7-type-informatique

269 Euros on special offer... Normally 299 - that's 100 E more. Similar clock speed, and CFS3 can use only one core...

[hairyspin]

Geek on duty, SAH! Mostly looks fine Nigel, apart from the motherboard which is microATX: made to be space-saving, so you only have two DIMM sockets for RAM and if you want to add more later you'll have to toss the existing units and replace 'em. Another limitation is there's only one SATA 3 socket, so no additional SATA 3 hard drive later, the rest of the sockets are SATA 2. If you just want a compact setup then ignore this raving loon, but does it suit your case? If a compact case is in mind, will the graphics card fit? These things are fairly massive these days.

The video card looks a monster, you'll not exhaust that one with CFS3 however many AI you have spawning and the recommended system psu for that card is 400W and 24 amps so the psu you're looking at (500W, 34 amps) ought to manage happily.

Have fun!
(the other) Tom :mixedsmi:

[hairyspin]

... you could get an i7-2600K processor... that processor will get you further down the road...

:kilroy: Sorry Tom, but lots of others have found no difference because the clock speed is no better. CFS3 is almost 12 years old and the only way to get it running really fast is with a really fast clock speed. Chipset, memory and i/o speeds have also improved since 2002 which accounts for the rest of the speed improvements, but you could throw an 8-CPU 2.8GHz multiprocessor rig at CFS3 and it would still only use one core of one processor, at 2.8GHz!

I'd love an i7 monster rig but not for CFS3; I'd throw it at 64-bit 3ds Max or Photoshop where the software knows how to use all that power.

[Human Drone]

You know, harry, you've got me there. :blind: I didn't know they had an i5 at 3.4 Ghz; the 2550 is a new one to me! So yeah, back when I was looking the choice was i7-2500K at 3.3 Ghz or i7-2600K at 3.4 Ghz with the hyperthreading (which CFS3 doesn't use). I took the 2600K becasue I do a lot of multitasking and engineering analysis. But like I say, my i7 is stable ayt 4.1 Ghz and I haven't even pushed it yet, I hope our friend here gets that much capacity on his chip!

So as you say, (clock cycles)/euro is the metric and I agree that this chip looks pretty good!

Best,

Tom

[ndicki]

Stand at ease, stand easy!

Good advice there about the motherboard. I hadn't spotted the size limitations - I was looking for SATA 3 capability, but didn't spot the trap...

http://www.grosbill.com/4-asus_p8h67_version_b3_-136833-informatique-_carte_mere

Better? I checked on the Asus website that it is the updated B3 version, which seems to be important. Something to do with the Sandy Bridge thing which I've heard about. I've used Asus before, and the last one lasted some six years or so of pretty hard use. Can't complain...

The case I'll probably recycle - I knocked off a couple from work a few years ago, and if the computers themselves are no longer needed, there's still no point in throwing away usable kit!

[hairyspin]

Permission to speak, sah!

Nice choice on the motherboard Nigel, it's even got an IDE socket if you want to stick an old drive in to get data off it. If you can still run the old rig and transfer over ethernet that's what I'd do, but it's nice to have the option. The i5 is a Sandy Bridge processor, so very suitable. :salute:

You shouldn't look at all silly looking for that lot, just check for SATA cables supplied with the mobo; if you have to buy some or get more, get the type with the locking catch. :jump:

[ndicki]

Just testing, Corporal. Glad to see you were listening!

Yes, that IDE socket will allow me to 'drain' my existing HDs into the new one. Many GBs of flight simming stuff I really do not want to have to reload by hand - and that's if I can even find it! And I've got a few spare SATA cables lying around anyway - when I replaced my previous motherboard, I didn't need them as my HDs are all IDE.

Looking good to go...

[hairyspin]

Corporal? Promotion! Another thruppence a week! :jump:

Just one more thing, does t'missus know about this?

[ndicki]

No, of course she doesn't! :icon_lol:

She does know about the car I want to buy though. Nothing like distracting her attention with one thing you want that she will see the point of, while nipping behind her back with the one she won't...

[Human Drone]

What's that saying? "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission!" :mixedsmi:

But the IDE plug to "drain your hard drive" item pointed up something I'm missing - I don't see a SATA3 hard drive on your list - or do you already have something, or are you just going to stay with the IDE until funds rebuild?

I was lucky. My "Wing Commander" said, "The kids are grown, you've worked hard, we have a few bucks, go for it!"

[ndicki]

I didn't put the HD on the list because it's a given - no point in adding things that I don't need to ask about. But it/they will be there....

The children aren't grown, I try very hard not to do very much work, and the akkers are going on sending the said offspring to St Trinian's, so that excuse won't go far round here!

[Human Drone]

The children aren't grown, I try very hard not to do very much work, and the akkers are going on sending the said offspring to St Trinian's, so that excuse won't go far round here!

Well do I remember those days! We raised five, and that's work no matter how much you try to avoid it!

Hope the build goes well. My MB is an Asus as well, P8P67 Pro. I'm quiet pleased.

Best,

Tom