£1300 ($2050) Microsoft Flight Simulator X Build

[Syzygy787]

Hi

I'm looking to build a FSX system for about $2050 in a couple of weeks time. The specification is listed below.

OS: Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium

Monitor: Acer S240HLbid 24'' Full HD widescreen LCD monitor with LED Backlight (Price - £124.94)

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.4GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 6MB Smart Cache, 34x Ratio, 77W, Retail (Price - £172.98)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L12 Low Profile High Performance CPU Cooler, Intel LGA2011,1155,1156,1366,775 and AMD FM1,AM3+/AM3/2+/2 (Price - £43.34)

GPU: 2GB EVGA GTX 680 SC Signature, 28nm, PCIe 3.0, 6208MHz GDDR5, GPU 1084MHz, Boost 1150MHz, Cores 1536 (Price - £376.42)

Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub/ DVI-D/ HDMI, ATX (Price - £106.52)

RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Dominator Platinum, PC3-19200 (2400), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 10-12-12-31, DHX, XMP, 1.65V (Price - £106.46)

Power Supply: 850W Corsair Enthusiast Series 850TXV2, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.31, PSU (Price - £94.62)

OS Boot SSD: VTX4-25SAT3-256G - 256GB OCZ Vertex 4, 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s, Indilinx Everest 2, MLC-Flash, Read 560MB/s, Write 510MB/s, 120k IOPS Max (Already Bought)

Storage HDD: 3TB WD Red WD30EFRX, SATA 6Gb/SEC, 64MB Cache, Internal HDD For 1-5 Bay NA (Price - £122.76)

Case: Cooler Master HAF X V2, Black, Full Tower Performance Gaming Case inc Side Window USB 3.0,w/o PSU NEW VERSION (Price - £129.53)

DVD Drive: LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, DVD-RAM x12, SATA, Black, OEM (Price - £12.98)

Total Price - £1290.55 ($2047.33)

All comments and feedback is greatly appreciated.

 

[SuperDuperMe]

Hmmm, looks absolutely solid to me, Nothing i would change out there. Someone more knowledgeable than me may have better suggestions but what you have chosen there will crap all over fsx and still max crysis whilst making you a cup of tea and doing the dishes.

 

[kdfresh09]

maybe consider getting an i7, since from what i have read on that game, the fsx really puts a load on the cpu, and as far as a read, the i7 3930k is the only current cpu right now that can handle the fsx on max settings. but thats a $500 chip. id recomend that you consider the i7 3770k, if you want to run the fsx settings higher, or get the i5 3570k if your not too worried about the fsx.

 

[spirit]

Get a better board, a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H would be ideal I think. The UD3H or UD5H will be a better board for overclocking should you decide to overclock your CPU.

CPU wise, the i5 should be fine. There are people here who play FSX on Core 2 Quads and I used an i3 for an FSX build I did about a year ago and it ran fine. It's very true that FSX does require a lot of CPU grunt, but I think an overclocked i5 3570K should be fine. You could get an i7 3770K if you had the extra money I guess.

Spend less on the RAM, your regular Corsair Vengeance or G.Skill RipJaws 1600MHz or 1866MHz 8GB kit will cost you around £40-50, a big saving and you won't notice the difference at all. The money you save on RAM could be better spent on another board (the UD3H or UD5H is what I recommended) or on a 3770K if you wanted to get that.

I know the case is a personal thing but I prefer the NZXT Phantom. In my opinion it's better looking and it's cheaper too.

850W PSU is overkill for a single 680, a Corsair TX 650 V2 should do it. If you plan to go SLI in the future though, then yeah, 850W is probably a good option.

 

[wolfeking]

only a couple of things I would change.

1. Motherboard. The one you choose is pure junk. You are paying for features you will likely not be able to use. The Mosfets are 4+1+1 dpak with splitters. This leads to a lot of droop in voltage, and a hot mosfet (which is not wanted ever). Not to mention they claim (iirc) digital when the dpak is analog. The board also has known issues with the intel SATAIII ports not working, and a less than optimal BIOS. Only reason to get that board is to have a decent low end board for a non overclock build.
For motherboards, look at Gigabyte (UD3H or above) , Asus (P8Z77- V LX or above), or MSI (GD80 only).
2. Monitor. Acer is not a brand I would recommend. Their monitors have a disturbing lack of any control, and the colour settings do not allow for proper calibration at all. Look at Asus or Dell for monitors.
3. Memory: This is questionable. 2400 is a decent load on the memory controller. Not sure about Gen 3 processors, but on my 2600k, I need extra voltage on the memory controller to get 2133 on all 4 DIMMs, but it will do 2400 on 2 DIMMs stable.
I would go for 2133, just because the price is not a lot more than 1866, and the performance is better for memory intensive applications (FAH and other distributed computing apps, as well as any application that uses physx).
For RAM, I personally recommend Samsung, but Kingston, Corsair, G.Skill, Geil, and Patriot are all good brands. If you are looking for low profile, samsung is the lowest profile available, and is cheap.
SSD: That drive is slow. Look at Samsung 840pro or the Extreme (I forget the brand name to it).

edit: sorry, misread =. Thought it was teh M4. The one you bought is a decent drive.

HDD: Junk. Well not really, but it is low performance and intended for RAID arrays. If you want a storage drive with only 1 disk, get a Seagate, Samsung F4 or Western Digital Black.
Case: Look at the Switch 810 or 800D. The 650D is also brilliant. I would not suggest any Coolermaster product.

 

[Syzygy787]

Thankyou for all your feedback. Here's what I've chosen instead.


CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.5GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 8MB Smart Cache, 35x Ratio, 77W

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth Z77, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0, DisplayPort/ HDMI, ATX

RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-14900 (1866), Non-ECC, CAS 9-10-9-27, XMP, 1.50V

Power Supply: 750W Corsair Builder Series CX, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.31 PSU

Storage HDD: Seagate 3TB Performance SATA 3 Hard Drive ST3000DM001 7200rpm with 64MB Cache SATA II Compatible

Case: NZXT Phantom Enthusiast White with Red Striping & Red LED Full Tower Performance Gaming Case with USB 3.0 w/o PSU

 

[spirit]

All looks great.

 

[Okedokey]

You want as many cores as possible on the CPU. FSX will not stress a 680, but it rapes CPUs.

 

[kdfresh09]

to OP. you are still getting the ssd right, for your os boot and programs/games?
if so, then id say it all looks good. just dont get a 3tb drive for your os. use it for starage and get yourself an ssd if you havnt decided on it yet. other than that, it looks great.

the i7 3770k is a great cpu. wonderful for multitasking and speeding up anything really due to hyper threading. i tried encoding a movie with hyper threading off, essentualy making it an i5 cpu, and although it encoded my movie just as fast, it lagged just slightly when watching a movie on netflix and took a bit longer for media center to load. with hyperthreading enabled, all lag is gone, and im just overall pleased with the chip. you wont regret it at all, especialy since you will be able to get more out of your game with the fsx setting.

 

[Syzygy787]

to OP. you are still getting the ssd right, for your os boot and programs/games?
if so, then id say it all looks good. just dont get a 3tb drive for your os. use it for starage and get yourself an ssd if you havnt decided on it yet. other than that, it looks great.

the i7 3770k is a great cpu. wonderful for multitasking and speeding up anything really due to hyper threading. i tried encoding a movie with hyper threading off, essentualy making it an i5 cpu, and although it encoded my movie just as fast, it lagged just slightly when watching a movie on netflix and took a bit longer for media center to load. with hyperthreading enabled, all lag is gone, and im just overall pleased with the chip. you wont regret it at all, especialy since you will be able to get more out of your game with the fsx setting.

Yep I'm still getting the SSD as my boot drive. I think with spec that I've now chosen, I should be able to max out FSX on one monitor now hopefully

 

[StrangleHold]

1. Motherboard. The one you choose is pure junk. You are paying for features you will likely not be able to use. The Mosfets are 4+1+1 dpak with splitters. This leads to a lot of droop in voltage, and a hot mosfet (which is not wanted ever). Not to mention they claim (iirc) digital when the dpak is analog.

Not a big fan of Asrock either. But the board has a 8+2+2 power phase choke setup. 8 for the CPU. 2 for the memory controller. 2 for the PCIe and DMI. The voltage regulator is a ISL6367, its a hybrid digital Active Pulse. It has a 6 phase for the CPU/memory and a single phase for the graphics.

 

[Syzygy787]

So with all the information analysed, here's what I've come up with.

OS: Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium

Monitor: Acer S240HLbid 24'' Full HD widescreen LCD monitor with LED Backlight (Price - £124.94)

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.5GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 8MB Smart Cache, 35x Ratio, 77W (Price - £253.40)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L12 Low Profile High Performance CPU Cooler, Intel LGA2011,1155,1156,1366,775 and AMD FM1,AM3+/AM3/2+/2 (Price - £43.34)

GPU: 2GB EVGA GTX 680 SC Signature, 28nm, PCIe 3.0, 6208MHz GDDR5, GPU 1084MHz, Boost 1150MHz, Cores 1536 (Price - £376.42)

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth Z77, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0, DisplayPort/ HDMI, ATX (Price - £173.92)

RAM: 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-14900 (1866), Non-ECC, CAS 9-10-9-27, XMP, 1.50V (Price - £48.95)

Power Supply: 750W Corsair Builder Series CX, 85% Eff', 80 PLUS Bronze, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.31 PSU (Price - £66.90)

OS Boot SSD: VTX4-25SAT3-256G - 256GB OCZ Vertex 4, 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s, Indilinx Everest 2, MLC-Flash, Read 560MB/s, Write 510MB/s, 120k IOPS Max (Already Bought)

Storage HDD: 3TB Seagate ST3000DM001 Barracuda 7200.14 SATA III 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms NCQ OEM (Price - £98.38)

Case: NZXT Phantom Enthusiast White with Red Striping & Red LED Full Tower Performance Gaming Case with USB (Price - £99.58)

DVD Drive: LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x DVD±R, 8x DVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RW x6, DVD-RAM x12, SATA, Black, OEM (Price - £12.98)

Opinions? Any changes that I should make before buying this?

 

[spirit]

All looks fine to me. Just make sure when you install your cooler it doesn't obstruct your RAM. You may want to get the low profile version of the same memory just to make sure.

 

[wolfeking]

Not a big fan of Asrock either. But the board has a 8+2+2 power phase choke setup. 8 for the CPU. 2 for the memory controller. 2 for the PCIe and DMI. The voltage regulator is a ISL6367, its a hybrid digital Active Pulse. It has a 6 phase for the CPU/memory and a single phase for the graphics.

Marketing. It is 4+1+1 with splitters/doublers. If you take it apart and look at it, it may be hybrid, but they claim digital, not hybrid.

Non of which makes it any better than pure junk. At the same price you are looking at UD3H which has true digital 6+2 phase setup, which leads to less ripple in the CPU power, and overall just a better built board.

 

[StrangleHold]

The board has 12 chokes. 8 for the CPU and 2 for the memory controller and 2 for the PCIe. Count them 12. Its not a 4+1+1.

Plus
http://www.intersil.com/en/products...-vrm-imvp/multiphase-controllers/ISL6367.html

 

[wolfeking]

there is your issue right there. You are counting chokes as phases, and it is not right. TO be counted as 8+2+2 (or 8+4 as it is marketed), it would necessitate that there be 1 mosfet per choke, and there is not. There is 1 mosfet and 1 splitter for every 2 chokes, and it leads to a poorly controlled power setup.

 

[StrangleHold]

there is your issue right there. You are counting chokes as phases, and it is not right. TO be counted as 8+2+2 (or 8+4 as it is marketed), it would necessitate that there be 1 mosfet per choke, and there is not. There is 1 mosfet and 1 splitter for every 2 chokes, and it leads to a poorly controlled power setup.

No I dont have any issues. The board has DSM (Dual stacked mosfets). In other words it has two mosfets stacked in top of each other. What your seeing as one is really two.

Edit
I dug into this board some more. It turns out the board does have 24 mosfets, two on each choke. Dont know where they came up with the DSM. It is a 8+2+2 phase. Turns out it uses old D-PAK mosfets, only lowend board use them anymore. The main mosfet used anymore is the RDS(ON) mosfets. But only uses 5 drivers. It links 2 chokes/4 mosfets together, under that you could possibly call it a 4+1. But technically its still a 8+2+2. Its sorta of a 4 phase, but uses 2 chokes and 4 mosfets in each phase. In a different way its sorta like the FX 8 core. By the old way of looking at a core, its a 4 core, but technically its a 8 core.

 

[Syzygy787]

Aaaah! I don't understand any of this technical talk regarding Motherboards Is the Asus Sabertooth Z77 the motherboard to go with?

 

[spirit]

Aaaah! I don't understand any of this technical talk regarding Motherboards Is the Asus Sabertooth Z77 the motherboard to go with?

Ignore the conversation above, they're discussing the Extreme4, not the Sabertooth board.

The Sabertooth is a great board to go with. Definitely better than the Extreme4!

 

[StrangleHold]

Dont get the Asrock. If you want a Asus like above by spirit get the Sabertooth. Or go with the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UP5 or the G1.Sniper 3