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

Hi, I apologize if I sound amateurish but I am unable to decide the practical benefits of using ssd drive versus bigger and faster hdd drive. I would like to have some practical and effective suggestions on how I can organize and/or upgrade my hard drive system. Currently I have my c drive on an hdd drive (500 GB) that is nearing capacity and is causing CTD issues with my p3d v4 simulation. My p3d v4 is installed separately into a small ssd drive of 120 GB and I am beginning to realize that this might be too tight for P3D installation. My P3D V4 addons are mostly installed in my P3D Addons folder in documents folder located in my c drive. I am p…

With the advent of Ortho4XP, there is an even greater need for more and more HD space. And if you are especially like me and want to use the higher zoom levels, there is a need for hard disk space of at least a few terabytes. Now I always thought that a SSD drive was not beneficial for flight sim performance and that it only helped in loading up a scenario faster. Don't know why I didn't question it, but that was what I thought I had read somewhere. But thanks to someone on a facebook group, I was informed that it definitely matters to have a SSD vs HDD when loading textures while in-flight. It makes sense. But I just wanted others to confirm this information as…

Hi, I'm starting to get things ready for a move to P3DV4 from FSX, and I'm looking for opinions an the following hardware changes. My current specs are in my signature. 1. I would like P3DV4 on a dedicated drive (I want to leave FSX installed for now). I don't care too much about load times. I am primarily concerned with in sim performance. Is an SSD necessary, and if so, what about this one https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA12K54C9643 (SAMSUNG 960 EVO M.2 2280 1TB PCI-Express 3.0 x4 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) MZ-V6E1T0BW)? Considering I want a 1tb drive, is there another (meaning cheaper) SSD or even an HDD that I should be considering?…

Hi i was thinking of purchasing a i7700k CPU and was wondering if this cooler, Corsair Hydro Series H55 High Performance All-in-One Liquid CPU Cooler, 120 mm Radiator would be able to do a good job of cooling the CPU which I may o/c to 4.8 if not please recommend a cooler,any advice much appreciated. Jim

About two months ago I bought a new Asus 1080 TI card. This was installed into a Rampage V Extreme motherboard with 16 Gigs of ram and Windows 10 Pro OS with the latest updates. The system had been working fine for the last 6 months but I thought it would be nice to try to get a few more FPS since I am going to use P3D V4. After the install and updating to all the latest bios and drivers I started P3D V4 and with the default planes and no addon graphics I was getting 40 to 50 FPS. I installed my PMDC planes and now I am getting 15 to 20 FPS with the default graphics. I opened up Task manager and found that My CPU was locked at 1.17 GHZ. I downloaded the In…

I'm replacing my aged 5960X - Asus RAMPAGE V Extreme with EK monoblock (CPU, VRM, PCH) with an i9 7900X and Asus Prime X299. I'm struggling to find anyone with water blocks. Any suggestions for sources (US preferred but willing to get outside US, like EK in UK)? Cheers, Rob.

Considering a 250GB Samsung 960 Evo PCIe M2 SSD and a 500GB Samsung 850 Evo SATA SSD for my next system, but I wonder if the M2 is overkill??? Q1) Does the additional speed of the M2 drive offer any useful practical advantage over the SATA SSD for simming (or is it literally just going to be the load times)? Q2) With this setup which drive should I put the OS on for better overall system performance?

I've done some research, most forum threads on the topic of FSX and RAID0 are from between 2008-2012, mostly with HDD's in mind. From what I understand the difference between a SATA HDD and a PCIe SSD is like comparing a Cessna 172 to a SR-71 Blackbird. However from the forum threads I read, I see RAID0 & FSX is a "Big no-no!" Does the same opinion stand with today's technology, or are there people using RAID0 with PCIe SSDs with good results? Why use RAID0 with FSX, and most importantly, why NOT to use RAID0 with FSX?

Hi Complete novice on this so hopefully someone can advise and point me in the right direction. I'm going to have to read up on this more, next year I plan on upgrading my system from my i7 4930k 980ti setup.I am currently using an h110 water cooler,but what is the difference between this and water blocks and pumps.My h110 keeps my cpu pretty cool with my 4.5 oc Not sure what i'm going to get yet as i always seem to upgrade at the wrong time so plan on waiting to see what the best cpu ,mobo and graphic card after anything new has all been released after march or so But the cooling i can think about as a starting point to research Hopefully i ca…

I just looked at this Passmark chart: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html By my calculations my 3930K at 4.42Ghz versus 7700K at 4.5Ghz gets a whopping increase of 8% in that single-core benchmark. And the 3930K has been on a Noctua air cooler. This is very discouraging as my 3930K box just died, and I'm thinking it's the ASUS P979X WS mainboard w/ its beep code saying, 'Hardware Component Failure'. The 3930K could still be working! This leaves me wondering if I shouldn't pick up a new ASUS P979X WS which is available on eBay right now and maybe this means I can resus the entire system w/ minimal work, no software reloading, etc. Very attractive. I…

HP-OMEN intel core i7-16GB memory-NVIDA GeForce GTX 1070 8gb dedicated graphics. 1TB Hard Drive_Brushed Aluminum Windows 10 64 bit 7th generation intel core i7 processor. 16 GB memory- 1TB HARD DRIVE. Wireless networking blue tooth key board and mouse. Processor speed 3.6GHZ. $1099.99 free shipping. This is a major step up from what I have (intel i3,GE Force 9400 GPU) and for the bucks I believe beats a rebuild. I run FSX-Steam, ORBYX Global, ASN, addon airports, ASN and primarily PMDG jets. I think as I watch development I may pick up P3DV4 and want to accommodate that in a year or two. So tech guys, what do you thin…

In case you are unaware, there resides within each of the last series of Western Digital DESK TOP version, NOT the PASSPORT form factor.....My Books USB 2.0 or 3.0, external drives, and the current new-series one, a full SATA-Helium Drive, that runs at 5,400 RPM. They chose 5,400, over 7,200, for the reason that the former lasts longer, and runs cooler, as well as needed less power (watts) consumption, for all read/write operations. Unfortunately, the smaller Passport form factor, has a drive that is also SATA, BUT, it has the USB to SATA interface hard-wired into the drive itself, so can not be attended to by the user, if it is the reason that the drive no longer communi…

So as most of us suspected, and as almost all reviewers are finding out, the Kaby Lake X is an absolute senseless processor. Higher power draw, lower benches, and lower in-game performance. One review video for your pleasure (there are plenty more!) : But please, if anyone can find data on flight simulator (xp11, P3dv4) testing, let us know!! But for now, i know what platform I'm NOT buying!

Hi all- I have an ASUS Hero Vi MB with 16GB of GSkill Trident DDR3 2400 of memory. I want to double that (8x4). Would anyone have a memory upgrade suggestion that would be compatible? Thanks, Mark

Hi all, I would need some advice about what motherboard to use in connection with: CPU: Intel i7-7700k and GPU: Nvidia GTX1070 Memory: DDR4 3200 Mhz CL15 Thanks, Christos

Hi, im planning to upgrade to a new system mainly for Prepar3D. Do you think this would be good enough for max. settings with PMDG/ORBX/ASN? If not, do you have any advice what I could improve? Thanks ASUS ROG Rampage VI APEX Intel Core i7 7820X 8x3.6GHz @ 5.00GHz EK Water Blocks KIT X360 Corsair HX1000i EVGA GTX 1080 Ti FTW3 Gaming 32GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB DDR4-3200 CL14 Quad Kit 2x 500GB Samsung 960 Evo M.2 NVMe

Looks pretty good and reasonably priced, can be used for flight simulators as well, that is what is says http://www.pagnianimports.com.au/next-level-racing-motion-platform.html?utm_source=Pagnian+Imports+News&utm_campaign=e1498f9c01-Next+Level+Motion+Platform&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_23ab462581-e1498f9c01-336287849&mc_cid=e1498f9c01&mc_eid=dcbbf9ddba

I currently have an HP Touchsmart Laptop, with an i5-4200m processor (2.5ghz up to 3.2ghz) and NVIDIA GeForce 840m graphics card. Unfortunately the screen is broken on my laptop and I will need to get a new one. I know a laptop isn't the best for FSX, but right now a laptop is what I need for work and uni. I'm looking at a couple of options for processors: i5-7300HQ (2.5ghz up to 3.5ghz) or i7-7700HQ (2.8ghz up to 3.8ghz) And for graphics cards: GT950M (2gb DDR5) or GTX 1050 (2gb DDR5). I have a few questions: 1) Will there be a noticeable difference in FSX performance between the i5-4200m and the i5-7300HQ? What about the i7? 2) Would there …

Hello, I need some advices regarding how to add a new HDD to my PC. It will be a 2TO SSHD used as data and game storage. My system is running W10. Is the install of such a disc "automatic"? I mean do I just have to connect the disc and it will be automatically seen by W10 or there is some stuff to manipulate Inside W10? Thanks for your advices, Pierre

Hello. My current system is: i7-3770K @ 4.2GHz, 16GB RAM, GTX 970 and I run at 2560x1440. I fly X-Plane, FSXSE and Prepar3d and overall I get satisfactory performance, except at busy airports (which I fully expected). It's possible (finances permitting) that I may upgrade CPU/MOBO/RAM towards the end of the year (I'll keep an eye on i9 prices). In the meantime, I'm thinking of buying a GTX 1080 Ti. I know this is a good card. Has anyone gone from a 970 (or similar) to a 1080Ti? Were you happy? Martin

I just switched to P3Dv4. My rig uses 16 GB of DDR4 3400. Always looking for ways to improve performance. Any reason to increase from 16GB? Thanks much.

Hello! So planning to upgrade my PC to a new case, new MOBO, RAM & CPU. (Also my GPU to a GTX 1070) What would you recommend for an MOBO? Would P3DV4 work well with DDR4 or should I stick with DDR3? Would an Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake Quad-Core 4.2 GHz LGA 1151 91W be good enough? Thank you all! Clem

Hi, I'm buying this PC and was wondering if it will run FSX-SE well with all its addons. Specs: Intel 7th gen i7 7700hq at 2.8 ghz NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1070 16 GB of RAM Thanks, Jackson

Hi everyone! I've just upgraded my RAM from 8GB to 16GB but.... The new sticks clock higher (2133 vs 1600) but I was able to run the older @ 2133 CAS 11. Now If I stress test my setup (Prime) I get errors @2133 CAS 12. What's, in your opinion, the best option? 1) Relax frequency or timings even more to get stable and upgrade the whole rig next year, with coffee lake maybe. or 2) could be worth to buy another set of 2133 sticks and run them at CAS 9-10 (and maybe upgrade my CPU to i7 4790k)? Thanks in advance! My rig: i5 4690K@4300 1 x Gskill F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR 1 x F3-2133C9D-8GX…

I didn't get a response on the forum below so I'll try here --- I have a 6yr old GTX 580 and GPU-Z says Max Temp while running FSX is 97.0 C and the Max Load is 99.0%. Should I be concerned? Thanks, Bruce