Jump to content

Recommended Posts

  • Aerosoft

I have been advising people so often about hardware for FSX and other sims it seems logical that when I buy a new one myself I discuss that. It also serves very weel to enlighten my idea that there is no such thing as a 'fast' computer. There is only a fast or slow computer for a certain use.

  1. Asrock Fatal1ty P67 Professional 182,90
  2. Corsair DIMM 16 GB DDR3-1600 Quad-Kit 84,90
  3. 2 X Corsair Force3 2,5" SSD 120 GB279,80
  4. Antec Three Hundred 54,90
  5. OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W 82,90
  6. Western Digital WD25EZRX 2,5 TB 124,90
  7. Intel® Core i7-2600K 289,00
  8. Antec KÜHLER H2O 620 47,99
  9. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 127,90

Total 1.275,19 (all prices in Euro and from Alternate.de)

With this I will use my GTX 560i graphics card.

Now why did I decide on those components (other then that I need to invest for incredibly stupid tax reasons)?

  • Disks: Well for me time is very valuable (ask our CEO, lol). I start FSX and other sims dozens of times a day to check something or to make a quick shot. But I never have a load of add-ons installed and I never use a simulator as you will possible do. So above anything else I need a very fast disk. That's why I will run two SSD's in RAID 0. I need Prepar3D to boot in seconds and not minutes. Over a whole day this really saves time (and frustation). 240 Gb on fast SSD is enough for my OS, Office, Photoshop and the base sims. The 2,5 Tb disk is for my huge collection of 1930 porn of course. But with current prices buying big is the only way, the smaller disks asre silly expensive. For a standard user I would be looking at one of those 1 tb hybrid disks. They are seriously fast and more or less cheap.
  • Memory: The 16 Gig of memory is useless for office and sims. But when we buy sat images for scenery they are often 5 gb or more. To do any work on them in Photoshop the memory really helps. I also often have all Office apps, FSX and Photoshop open at the same time (not that does NOT hurt fps in FS). Besides the price is so low it's a no brainer. For a person who does not do anything like this get 8Gb, it is plenty..
  • CPU: Every sim is CPU intensive and eany penny spend on this is well spend. But This is one area I spend more than is reasonable on. As downtime is hard to handle I do not intend to overclock, it also takes days to do it well, time I do not want to loose. If you are clever, get a core i5 and overclock, You pay way less and you will get close to the one I decided on.
  • Motherboard: I need USB 3 and I need stability. I also need the 2 Gb network option as I load many scenery files from a shared drive on my homeserver. A user without these needs would pay half what I paid.
  • PSU: I could have done with a 500 watt PSU, but those were all rather expensive. This one is high end but again, downtime is a major issue for me. A standard user should get something in the 60 euro range be ready to exchange the PSU after 2 years.
  • Case: The less spend and the less lights in it the better.
  • Cooling: Here I wasted a few Euro's as I just liked to try out the cheap water cooling options out now. Of course the stock cooler you get with the CPU will be fine. Again if you got any lights in the cooling fans you are silly.
  • OS: as my old system will go in storage as backup system I needed one more license. Win7 64 Pro is the best thing MS has done in many years.

I build a system that is fast in CPU, network and disks as that's why I need the speed. I also spend money on reliability as downtime is costly. It's not an ideal FSX / X-Plane 10 machine, it one that suits my needs and that is somehting you should always keep in mind. Most people spend too much on hardware.

So where does that leave my statement that you can get great FPS for under $1000? Well very much in tact. In fact if you use a core i5, overclock it, on a $75 motherboard with $50 or RAM and a $150 graphics card you will get about the same.

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Nice system! (especially the SSD's)

Price-wise though, you did rely a bit on legacy hardware to keep expenses down. (Monitor, Graphics card, Mouse, keyboard)

Still, the point is made, since as you pointed out there is ample room for cutting corners in there.

I note though, that 1,275 Euros is about 1,675 Us Dollars!!!! (Ouch!)

I betcha that with some research, people using this as a template could cut that price by at least a third. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice one Mathijs...really solid components (I'll reserve my opinion on the Fatal1ty branded hardware as I think you pay a bit of a premium for his Avatar namesake).

It should be a great performer for FSX!

We can't wait to see a posted FSX screenshot from you taken on your new system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The 2,5 Tb disk is for my huge collection of 1930 porn of course.

:lolsign_s:

As for the SSD's, I'm ordering 2 of the 240 Gb Corsair Force 3's next month along with 4 channel RAID card. The ultimate aim being to have 4 in RAID 0 for my FSX install :glare_s:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

Nice one Mathijs...really solid components (I'll reserve my opinion on the Fatal1ty branded hardware as I think you pay a bit of a premium for his Avatar namesake).

It should be a great performer for FSX!

We can't wait to see a posted FSX screenshot from you taken on your new system.

Not sure if the Fatal1ty comes with an additional cost for branding. I hate the fact some surfer dude (or whatever that guy does) stares as me as I change stuff in the bios, but if I check features the motherboard seems reasonable in price. Certainly as I seriously like the easy overclocking that a chimp can do without understand have a nice day about voltages and cycles. Took me 12 seconds to go from 3400MHz to 4200 MHz and the system is stable as a rock. 4400 tomorrow and I'll keep on going to 5000.

Screenshots of FSX really do not mean a lot as you can never really see what is set, but I can run all our products at the advised settings with at least 30 fps average. Just took of from Maastricht in the Bronco and never saw anything under 60 fps. Was looking for higher settings but there were none that made sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

:lolsign_s:

As for the SSD's, I'm ordering 2 of the 240 Gb Corsair Force 3's next month along with 4 channel RAID card. The ultimate aim being to have 4 in RAID 0 for my FSX install :glare_s:

You sure the raid card will help? The benefits of Raid0 go down fast with 3 or more drives and the motherboard I got can handle 6 drives on sata3 in Raid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mathjis.

I'd recommend you checking mindfactory.de.

They're selling the i7 for 168€ and the P67 or 97€ ;)

My brother order his new system there and I will order my new one there in April or May aswell for about 400€ (without HDD, GPU and other parts that I will keep). Their support is great. Shipping is about 11€ in Germany, but I don't know about shipping costs to France.

Didn't check the rest, but it should be worth a look.

http://www.mindfacto...ATX-Retail.html

http://www.mindfacto...o-1155-BOX.html

EDIT:

I just checked your whole system.

Excluding the ModXStream (it's not available there) you would get that system for less than 1000€.

I calculated 947.21€.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice, but in my eyes alternate or mindfactory are far too expensive. The SSDs would be much too small for my needs, even a 300GB wouldnt do, so I went for a 500GB HDD just for FSX. You should look at hardwareversand.de, even with sending all the stuff into the netherlands it should be way cheaper.

Got my new system there, compared to the two other options, at the best price:

8GB-Quad-Kit Corsair XMS3 Dominator, PC3-10667U CL9 (4x2GB)

Corsair Carbide Series 500R black, ATX

Corsair Enthusiast Series Modular TX750M, 750Watt

Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3, Intel Z68, ATX

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 580 Super Overclock, 1536MB GDDR5, PCI-Express

Intel Core i7-2600K Tray, LGA1155

LiteOn iHAS324-32 schwarz SATA Retail

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)

Assembly (very well done)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB, SATA II (HD103SJ)

Samsung SpinPoint F3 500GB, SATA II (HD502HJ)

Scythe Mugen 3 CPU Cooler

Samsung SyncMaster S24A300BL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You sure the raid card will help? The benefits of Raid0 go down fast with 3 or more drives and the motherboard I got can handle 6 drives on sata3 in Raid.

Its a historic thing with me. Too many server builds behind me. Plus using the onboard RAID puts extra load on the CPU. Of course I could always change my mind closer to the time depending what I can get on sale/special offers. Looking at the 500Gb Force 3 SSD's works out a little more expensive but takes up less space. Sheesh I dont know lol. Ask me again in April!

Nice, but in my eyes alternate is too expensive. The SSDs would be much too small for my needs, even a 300GB wouldnt do, so I went for a 500GB HDD just for FSX. You should look at hardwareversand.de, even with sending all the stuff into the netherlands it should be way cheaper.

Once you've experienced Win7 boot on an SSD the price will be insignificant :lolsign_s:

I was of the same attitude as you when SSD's first came out, until of course we got some at work to replace laptop hard drives. From that day I knew I had to get my mitts on as many of them as I possibly could!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mathjis.

I'd recommend you checking mindfactory.de.

They're selling the i7 for 168€ and the P67 or 97€ ;)

My brother order his new system there and I will order my new one there in April or May aswell for about 400€ (without HDD, GPU and other parts that I will keep). Their support is great. Shipping is about 11€ in Germany, but I don't know about shipping costs to France.

Didn't check the rest, but it should be worth a look.

http://www.mindfacto...ATX-Retail.html

http://www.mindfacto...o-1155-BOX.html

EDIT:

I just checked your whole system.

Excluding the ModXStream (it's not available there) you would get that system for less than 1000€.

I calculated 947.21€.

This is closer to what I would expect. It depends on how much time you want to put into research on pricing before you buy, since there are always sales, rebates, discounts and etc.

I think the biggest fixed price on Mathijs system is the SSD's, and even they can be found cheaper, though reliability of cheaper ones is always a possible issue. (the only ones I really trust are certain Intel drives)

On a completely different note, raid zero scares the pants off me!! :ph34r:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure if the Fatal1ty comes with an additional cost for branding. I hate the fact some surfer dude (or whatever that guy does) stares as me as I change stuff in the bios, but if I check features the motherboard seems reasonable in price. Certainly as I seriously like the easy overclocking that a chimp can do without understand have a nice day about voltages and cycles. Took me 12 seconds to go from 3400MHz to 4200 MHz and the system is stable as a rock. 4400 tomorrow and I'll keep on going to 5000.

Screenshots of FSX really do not mean a lot as you can never really see what is set, but I can run all our products at the advised settings with at least 30 fps average. Just took of from Maastricht in the Bronco and never saw anything under 60 fps. Was looking for higher settings but there were none that made sense.

WHAT??!?!?! Doth mine eyes deceive me??? Mathijs, overclocking? :D I knew you could not resist temptation!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Certainly as I seriously like the easy overclocking that a chimp can do without understand have a nice day about voltages and cycles. Took me 12 seconds to go from 3400MHz to 4200 MHz and the system is stable as a rock. 4400 tomorrow and I'll keep on going to 5000.

5GHz? For a workstation? Not a chance. You're going to need VCore in the region of 1.45V for that to be stable (approx. 1.25V is stock). I seriously wouldn't go beyond the 4.2 if I were you...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

5GHz? For a workstation? Not a chance. You're going to need VCore in the region of 1.45V for that to be stable (approx. 1.25V is stock). I seriously wouldn't go beyond the 4.2 if I were you...

Been running the whole day at 4.4 without any issues. From now on I will take 0.1 steps and will run 2 days on each to be sure it's all stable.

I do think that 5 will indeed need some tweaks that are not standard one click options on the motherboard. We'll see. As I said I am not a big fan of overclocking that's done semi manual. But this motherboard makes it real easy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mathijs,

Here's a question for you: are you running the processor at a constant 4.4 OC, or is your BIOS setting enabling "turboboost" up to 4.4?

There is a difference...one runs at a constant core clock of 4.4, while the other will ramp up the CPU to 4.4 depending on load.

An easy way to determine if this is not clear in the BIOS is to run a simple program like CPUZ (here) and look at the clock speed at system idle (after a fresh boot up for example with no other programs running).

4.4 is definitely a sweet spot for the i7 with a watercooler...nicely done!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Aerosoft

Mathijs,

Here's a question for you: are you running the processor at a constant 4.4 OC, or is your BIOS setting enabling "turboboost" up to 4.4?

There is a difference...one runs at a constant core clock of 4.4, while the other will ramp up the CPU to 4.4 depending on load.

An easy way to determine if this is not clear in the BIOS is to run a simple program like CPUZ (here) and look at the clock speed at system idle (after a fresh boot up for example with no other programs running).

4.4 is definitely a sweet spot for the i7 with a watercooler...nicely done!

I run it standard. For sure you can save a few electrons by varying but I run most of my machines from solar anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue. Privacy Policy & Terms of Use