FSX Computer - On the hunt

For example, would this be a good platform?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Apparently this is a six-core processor, so must it trump any quad-core processor? I really have very little understanding of computers and this is a complicated process for me. Again, thank you in advance for your assistance. My current desktop is in no shape to run such a demanding game.

For FSX I think a quad core x4 955@ 3.2Ghz or X4 965 @ 3.4Ghz would perform better than a hex core X6 1055T @ 2.8Ghz everything else being equal.
On the other hand the price difference between the X4 965 and X6 1055T is only $10 on the IBuyPower website.
Since you are open to overclocking and the X4 965 & X6 1055T overclock nicely you should feel good choosing either one.

What resolution monitor will you be using? A useful option might be going with the X4 955 and choosing the HD 5850.

FSX can be multi core enabled, and it is very compute intensive. In general, the Intel offerings will do better in that environment compared to amd.
That said, I suggest you look at some of the FSX forums to get feedback from actual users.

When you come up with what you think are good specs, get another quote from Ibuypower and post them here. I suspect that on a high end PC you can save considerable $ by assembling it yourself.

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meant this POST ^+1

The statement "run FSX well" is relative to what you expect comparaed to what I might think as "run FSX well".

I too like FSX and built a PC with that in mind when FSX came out. That sim does seem to like Intel CPUs better than AMD thou they both will play the sim and the results may be just fine for you with an AMD CPU.

I have played FSX on both and currently run a Q9550 OC'd to 4Ghz thou it is an old platform(775). I also use a Geforce graphics card model 250 GTS 1G as the sim does not need a really powerful grahics card to play well.

The link I am providing you sells PCs for FSX use but they are considered high end and the price reflects that. However they have a graph that shows what works pretty good for playing FSX.

I understand that you want to buy a prebuilt PC but that same amount of money would buy you a more powerful PC that you built yourself. Just giving info not trying to talk you in to anything your not wanting to do. 

Heres the LINK.

Good luck to you. 

Computronix is the expert about FSX on these forums.The link that arthurh has and the information in it pretty much mirrors some of the recommendations by Forum user Computronix.
Here is just one thread that I found with Computronix giving advise
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/274213-28-proposed-sy...

Here is another thread with Computronix giving advice
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/273249-31-dream-gamin...

If you are unable to built your own custom rig here is a system with a Core i7 930 CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce GTS 250 graphics card.
Not saying that it is ideal though but perhaps you can find another similar type of system.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

@ jj463rd



Yup. But...I like to add my two cents every now and then 'cause "Moderating" here is more fun if I get a chance to talk about my favorite sim.

Did you happen to notice who selected the "Best Answer" in your first link?

Good find on that link to Newegg.

I wouldn't trust a site that tries to convince you that you will get up to 5 frames per second more by switching to an SSD or get 3FPS more by switching to a higher end hard drive.

I actually do not have any experience with SSD HDDs so I could not really make any comment either way.

However using a dedicated high end HDD for FSX just might make a difference depending if your system can take advantage of it.

So is your mistrust based on personal experience or is this just your personal opinion?

I thought the link was interesting and also realize they are trying to sell their brand of PC but they do present some interesting configurations that I may research in the future.

My opinion and my experience with games. Explain to me how a faster hard drive could possible affect anything more than loading times unless you have 0.5GB of ram and the game has to actually get data from the swap file during gameplay because of that?

At the bottom of the link I put in this thread it talks about HDDs used with FSX.

I got that link from reading this post by the 4th poster in that thread.

Surely you trust that posters opinion?

Yes, and for some reason it shows a graph of FPS increasing with faster hard drives, which makes no sense. But when they talk about it, there is no mention of why.


Nor do they say anything as to how a faster hard drive could increase you frames per second in FSX.



You mean I should trust the site because they also linked it? I think you misunderstand what I mean by distrust. I don't mean that I think the Jetline Systems will rip you off, but I feel that they will mislead you some as to what can increase you performance in order to get you to spend more money. Everything else they say of course will increase FPS, although I have some wariness about seemingly large difference caused by faster ram. But my main concern is an FPS increase with a faster hard drive. And so far, no one here has confirmed or denied this claim.

I think the only HDD advantage would be game startup time - not actual in-game performance.
Thats a slim justification for saying a better HDD/SSD gets you better 'game performance'.
I'd go for a CPU with a larger on-die cache (if that was a choice) or extra RAM before I'd take a SSD .

I had a moment of 'ehhhhhhh what?' looking at that JetLink website too.
Comparing a $999 i7 980x vs a $180 X4 965? Why wasn't the performance 5x higher?
Also noticed the lack of a unclocked i7 930 in the chart as well. Like the X4 965 can't be OC'd?

If the game reads and writes to the swap file a lot rather the system RAM then an SSD should show an improvement in fps (hence why Raptors were the HDD of choice a couple of years ago) if the game is heavily CPU orientated then the effect would only be exaggerated thus instead of just seeming to be "snappier" there would actually be a measurable increase, in this case it may only be four of five frames per second but that's usually more than a Raptor.