System Hardware: PC | MOBO | RAM | CPU | HDD | SSD | PSU etc

I haven't flown FSX for months. I got too frustrated with the endless tweaking, not-good-enough performance, and lack of cash for my desired upgrade, so I put my rig away (E6700\4GB RAM\8800GTS 640MB card) and that was that. But I'm jonesing and I need to fly again.My target is good performance with FSX + ORBX NA scenery + FEX. Nothing else. No frame-killing super planes or AI Traffic.Without splitting too many hairs, will an i5 CPU (760 maybe) and a 1GB 560 card and 8GB of RAM actually let me fly around the ORBX scenery, including cities and larger airports, with smooth-osity, or will I end up throwing my computer out the window because I just spent $800 for a 5% increas…

In Jan 2011 I upgraded to a SB i2600K PC Asus P8P67Dlx. It was clear from the beginning that this system would overclock easily up to 5.0ghz.I finally settled on 4.6-4.8 for better performance/voltage/heat ratio. FSX would finally run smoothly.However there were some problems with the board. Intel flaws (well advertised) and various other UEFI bugs (keyboard-mouse recognition, memory problems, sleep etc..). So the B3 board finally arrived, re-installed but apart from the Intel sata3 bug correction, all of the over bugs were still present. A new BIOS fm Asus cleared up the keyboard problem for me. I had no memory problems but still had "sleep" problem. Finally decided to r…

HiI just want to have the confirmation that i7 2600k is today the best processor to run FS9 (and FSX?) on a new rig.My understanding is that going to 6 or 8 slower cores won't help as FS9 runs on one core only.What is the best Motherboard to support this CPU together with a high end video card?ThanksGhiom

Building a computer for FSX. Your comments and suggestions on my choices would be appreciated:Cooler Master HAF X 942 Full Tower ASUS P8Z68 Pro motherboard I5-2500K Sandy Bridge CPU Gigabyte GEForce GTX 560 8G Mushkin Enhanced DDR3 1600MHz Ram Corsair H70 CPU Cooler Corsair AX850 power supply OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III SSDThanks,Wayne

I'm starting a Asus P67 Deluxe build and the manual description of the SATA ports is confusing. I'll be putting the OS and FSX on separate WD Caviar Black drives. Are they best set up on the Intel or Marvell 6 GB ports...or doesn't it make any difference? No RAID. Thanks.

Hello everyone,I've only joined in the last couple of days, but after Dazz's reply and seeing a lot of videos of FSX on Youtube, I've decided to take a little longer to plan, build and use my PC and therefore have a slightly bigger budget than I originally had. I think at the end I will join a club/clan (never thought I would but having seen the attitude and community here I like the idea...) I'm looking for a good amount of detail and for it to be smooth.I am an absolute beginner, never built my own PC, but I'm willing to give it a go. I'm hoping my work as an Avionics Technician in the Air Force will help! My planning stage will probably take a couple of weeks, but ulti…

This is my first attempt at overclocking my i7 950 and would like some inpute as to whether there are any changes that might improve my temps or performance without increasing the CPU FREQ. i am at now. I am not looking to sqeeze the last drop of performance by ocing to the limit, but just get a bit more with a stable set up so i chose 3680mhz. Here are my settings without showing every line in my bios, so if i missed out something important i can provide:TARGET FREQ..................................3680MHZTARGET DRAM FREQ......................1604MHZBCLK..................................................160CPU MULTI........................................23QPI LINK DATA R…

So I finally returned my B2 motherboard today. Question is, which new motherboard should I get? I'm obviously leaning towards the new Z68X-UD5, but I'm a little disappointed the new touch bios is only accessible from Windows. So in my mind, it's between the Z68X-UD5 and the P8Z68 Deluxe (which I don't believe is even out yet). I suppose this is really a question of Asus or Gigabyte?How do you guys like the Asus EFI bios?

Hello everyone,I am finally attempting to make the move to FSX in preparation for the PMDG 737NGX. I came across this computer that I got from a friend for a pretty good deal and thought I'd give it a shot. Last night I installed FSX Deluxe w/ Acceleration and began to do some of the quick tweaks that I could find. I was using the default 737-800 in KSEA with most settings maxed and getting between 10 and 20 fps(I had the slider set for 21fps lock). I guess that's not too bad. But, I was definitely getting stutters when taxiing around. In the end, I don't really care too much about the exact frame rate number that I hit as long as it is smooth and looks good. I wan…

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/d-wave-one-quantum-computer-canada,12776.html

Hey guys,Well im back after a long bout of illness with another question for the pros. Last time i was here Mr Cmeeks and GaryA helped me achieve an o/c of 4.5ghz (thanks again guys) now i'd like to try for a 4.8/5ghz o/c and wondered what voltage you guys would aim for or if you would bother. Im not that tech minded and have to rely on you guys for the help as you know what your doing. I did try 4.8 with 1.40v but it wouldnt boot so i would really appreciate your help, i'd just like to see the difference in the step up.Thanks to those that can help

I am getting the following:1-HAFX.2--I7 2600K No experience, but will learn and oc to whatever is safe.3-Asus P8P67 Deluxe rev.34- Corsair AX850W Modular.5- Corsair Vengance 8GB ???6- Noctua NH-D14.I asked Nick, and his opinion was:"Honestly I do not see much reason to run SSD for OS. If you intend to run SSD then I would run OS and FSX on separate SSD's and install the Intel RST driver. The mechanical hard drive is fine for dead storage in that setup. Otherwise any decent WD Black drive is fine for OS and installed programs."I got confused as to what Nick meant, and do not want to keep interrupting his work as I am anxiously awaiting his next gex release.Do ssd, and…

http://www.hexus.net...em=18759&page=1Having just purchased the new Z68X-UD4-B3, it was interesting article to read.

Could the OC gurus please help me out with my memory timing. I have mildly overclocked my i7-950 to Just a tad over 3.6ghz. (for now) and everything apears to have gone fairly well. It has passed the sress test with temps. at 58deg. C tops (am using NH-D14).My problem is, i want to manually set the timing to the factory settings (3X2G) (9-9-9-24) (G.SKILL DDR3-1600) but on the Rampage 3 when it comes to manually setting the tRAS, i only get a choice from a pre-deturmined list. So i would end up with 9-9-9-17 (17 being the highest value available) so for now i have left these options on Auto and manually set my DRAM BUS to 1.5v as per G.SKILL spec for this ram. Being a com…

All favoritism and brand loyalty aside, how are your P67 motherboards treating you guys? My Gigabyte board has been mostly flawless for the last couple months. That is until twice I got an idle BSOD last week. I've done a little reading around and it looks like I need to mess with my PLL overvoltage. I'm convinced the idle BSOD is solvable, so I'm not particularly worried. I've done nothing to try and fix it so far. Also, my Sata II ports are all dead but we know that's Intel's problem.

I have voltage for the NB set on my ASUS P5E3 Premium at 1.51 currently, and have very good latency and memory read scores. It's all nice n stable, but I am loathe to fry my main board. The ONLY settings I have manually set are:CPU at 1.3425.DRAM at 1.9v (rated at this max)NB at 1.51vMemory timings, Command Rate, Performance LevelI have ALL other settings set at AUTO.What do you think about this with respect to killing my main board? Do you think the NB is ok at this setting?Thanks in advance,Noel

Go to the microcenter home page and refresh until you see the following deal. I had to hit refresh 10 or 15 times before it came up. If that doesn't do it, try it in a new tab. It still shows up as $279.99 in the cart, so I guess the deal hasn't gone live just yet. It never hurts to print the $229.99 advertisement out and see if they will honor it in-store.

Hello, i currently have an issue with fsx. my old pc has less than 100mb of video ram and runs fsx smooth with about 35fps. i got a new pc, and it has about 1GB of video ram with a dual core anthlon and runs less than 5fps! whats wrong? here the specs of my new pc:AMD Anthlon X2 Dual Core ~1.8Ghz(2cpus)1GB video ramNVIDIA GeForce 7000m/nForce 610m2GB ramWindows 7 Ultimateany help is appreciated!

This is a question for all you really smart computer types out there.I have 2 x 250Gb HD's in a SATA RAID connected with a strip and they show as 1 HD labeled "C" when I open "My Computer". One of the HD's is beginning to make clicking sounds when I boot the PC up. I have imaged the "C" drive onto a 1Tb external drive using Norton Ghost 15 and I now see two image volumes with a size of 142Gb and 109Gb respectively on the external drive.I am just wondering if it is a simple task to install 1 new HD @ 1tb and image the 2 volumes onto the one new HD or is there more to it? Will that even work?

What to do?Use a SSD Vertex 120 Gb for OS, and a WDC 1 Tb 64 6 Gbs for FSX?Or the other way around?NickN talks about IDE being the best for FSX, but when Win7 is on the SSD, it´s ACHI, and the same for the WDC...Opinions, or better yet, experience about this, appreciated, thanks!

Original spec: Intel E8500 3.16 / Intel DG33BU / Zogis GeForce 8800 GTS 512 / 4GB Corsair / Acasa 750w (Real) PSU (two months old) (All DDR2) - XP SP1 / FS9.1Location: Just off the beach, NE Brasil Just before the four-day Easter holiday my Mobo was diagnosed as oxidised beyond repair (the most common pc problem locally) and due to the lack of stock held in the local shops the only replacement immediately available was a Gigabyte G41MT-S2 DDR3 (with apparently an Intel G41 chipset). No shop had a DDR2 board, obliging me to swap my Corsair for Kingston DDR3. The tech warned me that the grafix card was also showing signs of rusting. After about a week with no a…

Looking for graphics improvement. Currently running [email protected]; EVGA GTX480@801 with 6gig of Dominator Triple Channel memory; TH2Go-DE; Win 7/64. Using FSX, UTX, GEX, REX, Ozx-NA, Orbix PNW/Rockies. Have used Bojote's Tweaker. I have tried both of Bojote's recommended FPS limiters but they just don't seem to work for me. I typically fly GA low tech aircraft. At major city airports I get from 15 to 25 FPS. At altitude I run from 25 to 50 FPS. Even at low FPS the system runs fairly jump free and completely jump free around 23 or so. I would like to raise my lowest FPS to around 25 and populate the autogen a little further out than 1/2 mile or so. All of…

.. monitor close to me.Preliminary config below - any suggestions for improvement (within the same general budget) are more than welcome. Asrock Z68 EXTREME4 S1155 SATA6 USB3 CFX/SLI Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4GHz 8MB Unlocked Box S1155Corsair Hydro H60CORSAIR Graphite 600T MidiMushkin DDR3 8GB 1600MHz CL7 kit (2*4)REDLINEOCZ Vertex 2 Series SSD 60GB 285/275 MB r/w2 x WD Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB SATA6 64MB x2MSI GeForce GTX570 1280MB TWIN FROZR II OCClub 3D 850W 80+ Bronze 135mm modularSony NEC AD-7260S-0B 24x black SATAClub 3D 850W 80+ Bronze 135mm modularWindows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1 DK OEMLook forward to put this through all it's paces. Including Intel …

Hey all,After having tried all sorts of tweaks, I still cannot figure out this issue. I have the feeling (that might be wrong of course ;)) that my performance in FS2004 is worse than possible with my current system. I'll give an example:PMDG MD-11 in VC at Aerosoft's LEMD with no AI traffic and no add-on weather. I use nHancer with 4xS antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering. In this setting, I am getting less <18 FPS; imagine what I get with AI traffic and add-on weather turned on. My specs:Intel Dual Core E6400 @ 2.13 gHz (not overclocked.. not possible on my system)2 GB RAMnVidia 9600GT video card 1GB I am running windows XP. Moreover, I shut down most processes …

Thought this might help some with systems similar to mine. I had my system overclocked to 4.8GHz for several weeks and it appeared to be stable as I ran Prime95 and 3dMark11 successfully several times. But recently I started to get crashes while surfing the Internet or running FSX. I reverted to the optimized default settings (3.5GHz). No more crashes and FSX actually ran very well on those settings (FSX likes a lot of CPU cores...). I did some research today on the crashes I had been getting and went back into the BIOS and hit the Extreme setting button ASUS has for automatic overclocking. It successfully got me to 4.4GHz and the system appeared stable. Then, sudde…