Aerosoft Advise: What Hardware To Buy

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

I know it is not yet January, but as I skipped December we might as well look forwards.

For the January hardware advise I decided to do things a bit different. As I am about to replace my own main work station from a cheap Duo2Core system to cheap Core i7 system I think this is an ideal comparison. So I will do some serious benchmarking on the old and new system so it should be clear what a Core i7 system can do for you. I will keep my current GPU (GeForce 8800 GTS) in the new machine and will use a 4850 I got here for the old machine. Based on previous experience this should double my (already very acceptable) framerates.

Core i7-920 (4x 2666 MHz) EUR 228,57

I decided to go for the cheapest Core i7 because they overclock so easy and overclocking a cheaper slow CPU gives you far better value for money then overclocking a high end model.

Triton 81 Euro 37,81

I will overclock so I need a serious cooler. This one is fine and not noisy and expensive.

P6T Deluxe (X58 Express) GTEA01 EUR 230,25

Core i7 motherboards are pretty expensive (and often out of stock at this moment) but they are always high end. This Asus one is very stable and offer dual network, something I need.

DIMM 3 GB DDR3-1333 Tri-Kit (3072 MB) EUR 111,68

As I will be using Vista 32 bits getting more memory makes little sense. This memory should overclock easy.

WD3000HLFS 300 GB (300 GB) EUR 205,80

Pure luxury, but I like a very fast disk because FSX likes disks with fast access times (it loads many small files). A more sensible choice would be a 1Tb disk for half the money of course, it would cost 1/6 per megabyte storage.

In total 814 Euro (you should be able to get this for $750 in the US rather easy).

As I want to keep my current system intact I also bought a new case, psu, DVD writer, 22 inch LCD and the OS. If you would rebuild your own system this would not be needed.

• Windows Vista Home Premium 32-Bit (Windows) YOBM7F EUR 79,75
• SH-S223Q (22 / 8 / 16 fach) CEBU24 EUR 25,20
• eXtremePower 460W (460 Watt) TN4M24 EUR 42,01
• G2200W (22 Zoll) V5LC11 EUR 153,70
• Centurion 5 (5 x 5,25" extern) TQXM12 EUR 46,13

[lindbergh72 74]

Mathijs, whould you recommend Vista 64 bit? for FSX? and I already own an Gefore 8800 GTX, is this card ok for FSX?

Kind regards

Frank

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Mathijs, whould you recommend Vista 64 bit? for FSX? and I already own an Gefore 8800 GTX, is this card ok for FSX?

Kind regards

Frank

If you got any need for more then 3 Gb of memory (and it IS so cheap at this moment) I would pick Vista 64 bits. But not for FSX as it simply will never use all that memory. So it can't hurt but it won't bring any benefits. If I would have a 8800 GTX I would not replace it at this moment. In the spring of 2009 we are looking at a whole new generation of GPU's with the resulting price drops of the previous generation. Graphics cards play a minor role for FSX, certainly not in speed.

[lindbergh72 74]

Okay, thanks alot Mathijs and merry christmas to you

//Frank

[limp 29]

My new 4870 gives me artefacts while booting... So I got a dead card :/ I hope they'll do a stock exchange tomorrow, but I guess it will be a GTX260, no more 4870 are in stock

[lindbergh72 74]

Hi,

Does FSX support SLI mode?

//Frank

[limp 29]

It supports it, but is of no use and can cause bugs from what I've heard...

My card was changed and I now have a GTX260, I lauched Far Cry 2 and the increase of FPS is great,

I'm launching FSX right now, we'll see how it goes

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Hi,

Does FSX support SLI mode?

//Frank

FSX does not support anything actually. It makes use of everything the OS offers to it. Or in more detail, what Direct X offers to it. So if your system has DirectX support of SLI GPU's (and it does) FSX will use it.

Does not make a lot of sense though as the sim is basically limited by the CPU and not the GPU. But if you got it, it will work. Just as buggy as any other product as again, FSX does not talk to the SLI cards, it talks to Direct X.

[limp 29]

Mathijs,

Do you have an idea when you will do your tests ? I'm hesitating in getting an iCore 7 to replace my Q6600, but I don't want to be decieved in the performance...

Have nice holidays, do you think this type of architecture will help in London VFR ?

For info I get an average of 17 fps with the Twotter over London and 15 FPS with Wilco Airbus 318

It would be great if the icore could run it around 25 fps

Thanks for your awesome products and support,

Regards,

Thomas

[Kofi 0]

Now that my desktop has died (typing from my 2003 laptop), I'm now saving up for an i7 based system. Problem is that it won't be until about March or so until I can get back to simming.....

Hopefully, it'll be worth the wait

[King_Creole 0]

Hi Mathijs,

how would you rate the i7 920 with stock frequency against a C2D E8600 overclocked to 4.3 Ghz? That is what I've got currently, after replacing this and that the last two months and playing around with the new stuff and trying to get FSX make the most of it...

Also I have 4 GB DDR2-1066 memory, 9800GTX+ GPU, a new Asus P5Qdeluxe MB, 750W PSU and a WD 300GB Velociraptor HD solely for FSX. However with more processing power, I found myself pushing sliders to the right so everything is looking much nicer now, but fps-wise this seems to be a dead race... I'm satisfied for now, but there's still room for improvement! With settings at high to very high, and having manually set autogen trees to 0, I'm getting quite stable 25-30 fps. But high-detail, high traffic airports with traffic at 60-70% (TrafficX) still cause fps to go down to around 15. So I'm thinking of probably having a look at the core i7 next year when prices go down.

Is it easy to overlock the i7? How far does it get with a i7 920? 940? and 965? Can they do with air cooling, or is water cooling necessary if you want to overclock?

Regards

Peter

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Hi Mathijs,

how would you rate the i7 920 with stock frequency against a C2D E8600 overclocked to 4.3 Ghz? That is what I've got currently, after replacing this and that the last two months and playing around with the new stuff and trying to get FSX make the most of it...

Also I have 4 GB DDR2-1066 memory, 9800GTX+ GPU, a new Asus P5Qdeluxe MB, 750W PSU and a WD 300GB Velociraptor HD solely for FSX. However with more processing power, I found myself pushing sliders to the right so everything is looking much nicer now, but fps-wise this seems to be a dead race... I'm satisfied for now, but there's still room for improvement! With settings at high to very high, and having manually set autogen trees to 0, I'm getting quite stable 25-30 fps. But high-detail, high traffic airports with traffic at 60-70% (TrafficX) still cause fps to go down to around 15. So I'm thinking of probably having a look at the core i7 next year when prices go down.

Is it easy to overlock the i7? How far does it get with a i7 920? 940? and 965? Can they do with air cooling, or is water cooling necessary if you want to overclock?

Regards

Peter

I am currently braking in the i7, seeing where it will overclock without becoming unstable. Not pushing it at all, I hate fiddling with voltages etc but the i7 is a small marvel in overclocking. Adding another 20% of cycles is easy, another 25% is doable in 10 minutes. I love this CPU. The benchmarking of FSX is ongoing and there is some stuff to check into as it does not always make sense. I am getting difference that variate a lot. Some of my FLT files show double fps, others only 20% increase and it is not clear what's causing this. Could be XP versus Vista.

What is clear however is that FSX feels like a total new sim. Not only does it load in half the time, changing locations is seriously 3 times as fast as on my old machine that has a rather serious hard disk in it as well. Not sure how much of this is due to the Velociraptor but the CPU and that disk really seem to love each other.

What is also clear at this moment to me is that if you are not very stressed for money, not buying a i7 is rather silly. Even the fastest Core2 Quarto overclocked is no match and you probably end up paying less for the i7. I am seeing >100 fps in FSX in some locations and yet have to see anything under 16 fps. But stay tuned I got screen shots to proof all that. I'll add two right now. Note I add average FPS in the images so you know I did not make the screen shot at at opportune moment. Not all results are this clear but the cheapest i7 is a stunning CPU for cheap money (if you got it). It's a major step up from the previous generation and AMD just has got nothing that gets close, not even if you are willing to pay unlimited money. Now that's shame as competition feeds progress.

If you can afford it, get an i7.

[warbird861 0]

What's the smallest amount of money I have to use to get an i7, considering I have to buy new mobo i believe.

[limp 29]

600€... I'm hesitating right now... But still not sure.

CPU is 200€, motherboard about 250€ and the ram is between 100€ and 200€ depending on the amount and type (please not that I converted swiss prices without using a calulator, it's just an estimate... + it's late )

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

What's the smallest amount of money I have to use to get an i7, considering I have to buy new mobo i believe.

Well, scroll up and read my initial post. That's the cheapest CPU, moderate priced motherboard and the cheapest ram I could find. I'm cheap, lol.

[limp 29]

Well just ordered my new rig

I'm getting it at the shop this afternoon, we'll see how it goes

[limp 29]

Héhé, I'm reinstalling my Rig right now :

I got :

I7 920

P6T Deluxe

3 gigs Corsair 16000

My old Raptor which now has Vista on it

A velociraptor 150 for FSX + games

GTX 260 which I had before...

Tests coming this week

[Guest pao]

Here is my new system on order :

Alienware Laptop with Intel Extreme Duo X9100 3,06Ghz. Dual Crossfire ATI HD3870 512MBx2 4GB DDR3 Ram 1026Mhz. WUXGA+ 1920x1200 .

I guess That would run fine with FSX....

Greg

[TEEMUSS 0]

have anybody of you tried the core I7 920 or 940 in fs 2004

[limp 29]

Nope, but I doubt it will make a difference compared to a core2duo..

[djolesar 0]

Héhé, I'm reinstalling my Rig right now :

I got :

I7 920

P6T Deluxe

3 gigs Corsair 16000

My old Raptor which now has Vista on it

A velociraptor 150 for FSX + games

GTX 260 which I had before...

Tests coming this week

Hi limp, a was really looking forward and expecting to see some info on how your new rig is behaving. You said tests coming this week. Did you maybe post it in another thread? I'm really curious about it, because i have almost the same rig as yours old one q6600 but on P5K, and i was wondering if you see some major improvement on FPS. Another question, how did you manage to OC to 3,6? I'm only on 3.0 GHz.

[limp 29]

Hi,

Sorry, yes I did say a week

I started flying on IVAO after reinstalling my new rig

I did post a couple of opinions but not on this thread (my bad).

First of all, I changed my PC for a simple reason, my parent's neighbor wanted a faster PC to replace his AMD 3700+.

He wanted a Q6600. So during Christmas I promised to build his PC. And when I started getting the hardware both my resellers were out and all they had were iCore7.... So since my hardware was quite no I made a deal with him and exchanged my Q6600 for an iCore7.

That little story is important because in a normal situation I wouldn't have changed my hardware.

So honestly yes FSX runs nicely, but I was hoping for too much.

Changing my graphic card made no difference what so-ever... The DDR3 did change anything either... Going to a Velociraptor from a Raptor... Nope... Maybe loading is a teeny bit faster.

All I can say is that when I fly Wilco's airbus on IVAO from LSGG or LSZH my framerate rarely drops below 20 FPS.

One thing I didn't reinstall on this rig is MyTrafficX since I didn't see the use of this now that I fly online

Concerning my Q6600 running @ 3.6 : It was my first overclocking. I had to change my 4*1 Gig to 2*2 gig of ram for it to work.

All I did is upper my Vcore and put the FSB at 400 MHZ.

400*9 = 3.6 ...

To be honest I haven't touched my iCore because I am not a pro at overclocking so what I said above may not be the optimal solution

Hope I haven't made to many mistakes in my text.

Other test I did, I took off from EGLL (Aerosoft mega airport) with the Twotter and flew to EGLC (VFR London) my FPS were mostly above the 20's...

I'll give it a try again this weekend, since I have tweaked my graphic card setup

Best regards,

Tom/Limp

[intrepid 2]

I am currently braking in the i7, seeing where it will overclock without becoming unstable. Not pushing it at all, I hate fiddling with voltages etc but the i7 is a small marvel in overclocking. Adding another 20% of cycles is easy, another 25% is doable in 10 minutes. I love this CPU. The benchmarking of FSX is ongoing and there is some stuff to check into as it does not always make sense. I am getting difference that variate a lot. Some of my FLT files show double fps, others only 20% increase and it is not clear what's causing this. Could be XP versus Vista.

What is clear however is that FSX feels like a total new sim.

Mathijs;

Have you had a chance to finish your benchmarking and come to an overall conclusion as to the performance capable with this i7 set up?

Randy

[Bender777 0]

Mathijs;

Have you had a chance to finish your benchmarking and come to an overall conclusion as to the performance capable with this i7 set up?

Randy

I too would be interested in your conclusions Mathisj !

Thanks

Deniz

[jespergb 1]

limp> Try running FSX with this avsim performance tester:

fsxmark07.zip

You download it and follow the instructions given here:

http://www.flightsimworld.com/forums/index...howtopic=140426

It's the best way to see the actual power compared to other systems.

So it would be great if you'd give it a try.