Nice list of parts, however, the selections for GPU, and therefore, PSU, are overkill for FSX.
Unlike most "gaming" titles, FSX and X-Plane are "simulations" which are very heavily CPU bound, but very lightly GPU bound. As such, neither FSX nor X-Plane benefit from SLI / CF, high-end graphics horsepower or GPU overclocking. Conversely, since multiple GPU's require more CPU interrupts, frame rate can actually decrease slightly.
As I've explained in many threads, frame rate scales with the number of CPU cores, and nearly 1:1 with clock rate, so a highly overclocked Intel Core i7 produces the best frame rates, as the i7's Hyper-Threading feature increases
minimum frame rate. Further, since FSX as well as X-Plane perform better with nVidia drivers, a mid-range nVidia based graphics card works well, which is why X-Plane recommends a single GTX 660.
The following link is to X-Plane's website - http://www.x-plane.com/store/hardware/ - and to their partner's website, XForce PC, who builds their PC's - http://xforcepc.com/store/index.php/computers.html?mode...
This is their description of their recommended hardware configuration:
"XForcePC Computer Specifically Designed for X-Plane ... Intel Core i7-4770K Processor Overclocked at 4.2GHz ... 16 Gigabytes of DDR-3 1600MHz RAM ... Nvidia GTX 660 Video Card with 2GB ... Requires no special adapters to run X-Plane on 3 screens."
An i7 4770K is a good choice over an i5, but a single GTX 760 would be more than adequate for either an FSX or an X-Plane PC. Also, an 860 Watt PSU would be overkill for a single GPU rig. Use the ~ $700 you will save and put it toward flight controls.
Keep in mind that as old a title as FSX is, there
still is not enough CPU horspower available to run FSX or X-Plane max'd out! The best combinations of frame rate and graphics detail remains a delicate balance between which settings to tweak, as well as extensive knowledge of the FSX.cfg file.
Hope this helps,
Comp
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