Budget flight sim machine

[esaglik]

a friends asked me for help building his new flight simulator rig, im not too sure what the specs should be like considering the minimum spec listed are components from circa 2005 if not earlier!

he wants a three screen set up so ive decided two gtx460's should do nicely, not sure for the rest, his budget is undecided but he wants to go as chaply as possible? time of purchase is in the next couple of weeks. site: ebuyer, overclockers. anywhere that ships to the uk really. currency in pounds please, makes it easier than converting when tring to show him how much its going to stack up to! 😛

 

[ScrewySqrl]

for 'as cheaply as possible' consider:
Athlon II X3 450
4 GB DDR3
AS Rock 870 Extreme 3
HD 6850 x 2
500 GB HDD
Seasonic S12II 520W PSU
case of your choice.

Total in the US would be about $700-750, so I'd guess around 600 pounds

 

[esaglik]

i may bump the processor up a little to a phenom quad core and push it a little?

 

[esaglik]

also would there be any big benefits in using the 6850's? he says he'd like physx if possible so i said id just use some nvidia cards then?

 

[clarkjd]

What Flight Sim program will he be using? If Microsoft's FSX, that program is CPU bound and you can't get too much CPU. Upgrading the graphics(once you pass a certain point) has less effect than upgrading CPU.

I don't know if FSX supports Physx, but if it does, then, Yes you are limited to NVidia cards.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

AMD doesn't do multiple NVidia cards very well at all. However, a single 6850 WILL do 3 monitors.

you might consider a sandy bridge build, which will allow SLI.

 

[esaglik]

since im getting two, ill go for the cheaper 750mb or whatever they are, some value close to that as thatll still give me 1.5gb frame buffer, then spend some more and go for a phenom 955 be? and yeah it is flight sim x, i wouldent know too much about it, he just said he wanted physx so yeah. would it be worth going for the six core over the 4?

 

[ScrewySqrl]

probly not. flight sim X is an older game, and uses a single thread

 

[esaglik]

not since the servic pack one update. its multi threaded now but im not sure how far.

 

[esaglik]

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition £119.99
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card x 2 £239.98
Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) £104.99
BenQ G2222HDL 21.5" Widescreen LED Monitor £309.60
Gigabyte GA-880GA-UD3H AMD 880G (Socket AM3) £86.99
XFX Pro 850W Core Edition Power Supply £79.64
Coolermaster CM-690 II Advanced Dominator Case £76.99
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache x2 £81.98
Thermaltake Frio CPU Cooler £39.82
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) x2 £27.96
Prolimatech Red Vortex Red Wings Red LED 140mm Fan x 2 £22.44

subtotal: £1,229.82

mabye i shoulda done my idea first and got opinions but this seems like a futureproof yet not breaking the bank pc especially considering its a triple screen?

 

[kwmike]

If you are considering FSX, generally speaking FSX and budget do not go together. If you are considering Flight Simulator 2004 (otherwise known as version 9) a lower end machine will do. FSX is recommended unless you have a lot of addons already for version 9, however FSX is highly dependent on CPU power even though it is an old game.

For FSX, Nvidia cards are considered better than ATI, something to do with shader implementation. ATI cards can be severely impacted by the clouds.

As a prior post stated, with the updates it is multi-threaded to some degree. Get the FSX Gold version which includes the Acceleration Pack and all patches. Intel quad-core CPUs are also considered the better choice, Sandy Bridge might be great but haven't heard anybody's experience yet.

FSX is also highly responsive to tweaks to get the best performance. There are some good resources online, a good start is at simhq and avsim forums. A highly recommended addon is REX, and also FS Water Configurator.

 

[esaglik]

do you not think the 955 would be enough? theres a good chance ill go to around 4ghz on it aswell?

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Overclocking is always a 'probably' .. you're guaranteed 3.2 GHz on a 955. ANYTHING more is never guaranteed. 3.8-4.0 is probable, however

 

[esaglik]

hence i said theres a good "chance" im no begginer to it, i just needed to ask the reccomended for flight sim x really hehe.

 

[Snipergod87]

since im getting two, ill go for the cheaper 750mb or whatever they are, some value close to that as thatll still give me 1.5gb frame buffer, then spend some more and go for a phenom 955 be? and yeah it is flight sim x, i wouldent know too much about it, he just said he wanted physx so yeah. would it be worth going for the six core over the 4?

Just wanted to point out that it will not give you 1.5GB frame buffer, only 768MB, both cards have to have the exact same textures loaded in the frame buffer.

 

[esaglik]

so will i see a cpu bottleneck? would it then be worth going up to the 1gb cards?

 

[clarkjd]

I honestly don't think that the frame buffers (going from 768 to 1BG) on the video cards will make a noticeable difference with FSX.

 

[esaglik]

so its not worth the extra 70 quid itll change?

 

[clarkjd]

I think you'll get more noticeable performance putting that 70 quid in your CPU...At least as far as FSX is concerned.

 

[esaglik]

but how? 70 quid wont make up the difference into the intel i5 sandybridge range, its more like a bridge of 150 quid plus?

 

[clarkjd]

In that case, I would consider getting more system RAM if you are going to use a 64-bit OS. More system RAM translates to less swapping to the hard drive swap file, and that means more performance.

 

[esaglik]

im already getting two 4 gb sticks though in that budget?

 

[ScrewySqrl]

that shoudl be plenty.

actually, I think you have a good overall build. aT 1920X1080, you're better off getting a 1GB 460 than the 768. The 768MB just kinda runs out of frame buffer over 1680x1050. the 460SE (which has 6 ROP vs the 768's 7) outperforms the 768 at 1080p by about 7% because of its 1GB memory, and runs about the same price), the full 1gb 460 is faster still.

 

[esaglik]

ok ill go for the one gigs then, thanks a lot for all your help, now to break the news about the cost, he was hoping sub 1k :L he'll buy it regardless, i know him too well 😛

 

[ScrewySqrl]

if youy need to trim the cost, you can get away with 4GB instead of 8. Consider an Acer monitor, less expensive than BenQ, but still good.