Alienware or Razor or MSI or ???

[evm]

Oke, so I am expecting something like around 50-60 FPS with photoreal sceneries such as flytampa dubai, aerosoft dubai(night),other vc's such as PMDG 777 and so on.

 

There is no PC system currently available that will give you that kind of FPS on a busy airport loaded down with addons. But don't be so fixated on FPS, this is not the correct metric for FSX. 60 FPS means nothing if your PC pauses every few seconds to reload scenery from your too-slow HDD. The most important aspect when flying is smoothness - so best thing to do is to turn off the FPS counter and see if you notice stutters etc.

 

To be honest, none of the Dell offerings strikes me as a good FSX machine. Either the CPU is too slow (Alienware Area 51) or the CPU is good, but the GPU is sub par (Alienware X51 with the 960). The best option would be to combine the x51 with a 980 card, but they do not offer this. And Dell PC cases can be a real pain to open up and drop something else in. They are custom engineered nightmares inside.

And you do not simply attach an external GPU - this is not possible as there is no such technology. You would have to buy the Alienware and an additional GTX980 on top, then open the PC up, pull out the GPU inside and drop the 980 in.

 

They video you linked... well, this guy does not use anything spectacular. The plane is no high-class 3rd party addon (there is no A330 currently on the level of PMDG or even Aerosoft), the airport is default scenery, the clouds and atmospheric scattering are rather meh (no weather addon?). And videos are no valid benchmark for anything, you could re-edit your FSX flight so that it looks like 60 FPS.

 

There were a few threads on the FS forums from Alienware users who were complaining about bad FSX performance. So I find it hard to recommend these, especially when you are keen on buying addons.

 

You could try Alternate, but they usually only ship to european countries.Their PC configurator apps in the webshops are good and may be helpful. http://www.alternate.com/

[darryl737]

There seem to be quite a lot of GPUs around lately that look to be "middle-of-the road", but when it comes to performance they are very much sub-par (like the GTX 750s for example).

 

Hence I said "a good middle of the road GPU", there are bad GPUs in all price brackets, so you need to do your homework according to your budget.

I cant comment on the GTX750s as I have not used any in any builds that I can remember and looking at the specs I know why, as there are better performers in that price bracket.

 

Now I am sure like me you have bench tested and used many GPUs in a real world environment as opposed to a benchmark test environment, and I am sure you like me have files full of data around such testing. However I will not sell a customer a $1000 GPU for a FSX dedicated system when a $750 GPU will perform just as well in the FSX environment with no performance loss and the only difference being that the $750 GPU is working harder, but being a customer pays for the whole GPU he or she should expect it to actually do some work to get there moneys worth out of it, not just sit there and work just 50% of what it is capable of. But then maybe you would sell them the $1000 GPU.

[evm]

Hence I said "a good middle of the road GPU", there are bad GPUs in all price brackets, so you need to do your homework according to your budget.

I cant comment on the GTX750s as I have not used any in any builds that I can remember and looking at the specs I know why, as there are better performers in that price bracket.

 

Now I am sure like me you have bench tested and used many GPUs in a real world environment as opposed to a benchmark test environment, and I am sure you like me have files full of data around such testing. However I will not sell a customer a $1000 GPU for a FSX dedicated system when a $750 GPU will perform just as well in the FSX environment with no performance loss and the only difference being that the $750 GPU is working harder, but being a customer pays for the whole GPU he or she should expect it to actually do some work to get there moneys worth out of it, not just sit there and work just 50% of what it is capable of. But then maybe you would sell them the $1000 GPU.

 

We live in different worlds obviously. And we seem to have very different attitudes, sorry to say that. You do not know what I do for a living, yet you assume I do not know what I am talking about. Suit yourself.

 

In my book $750 is hardly middle of the road, this is over the top. The "middle" region for me is the $100-300 bracket, and the top of the line starts at $500 plus.

[MBKHOU]

In my book $750 is hardly middle of the road, this is over the top. The "middle" region for me is the $100-300 bracket, and the top of the line starts at $500 plus.

 

To me, a $300 video card would likely be where I would top out, and I'd probably be

more likely to buy something around $200 or so, being I'm cheap.. :p

But I'd be real careful which one I bought to get the most bang for the buck.

And I'd naturally be prowling for good deals and sales.

I think he's down under though, and I don't know how his dollars stack against ours..

But even in down under dollars, 750 to 1000 bucks for a video card seems fairly

outrageous to me. No way I'd ever spend that much..

[evm]

Yajvan,

 

Just my very own personal view, it is up to you to decide if you want to do this:

(and anyone is invited to pick this apart at their leisure)

 

There are two eMax shops in Abu Dhabi who are selling MSI. Go to them and ask for the price of a Nightblade B85 Desktop with the below listed parts inside. Should be around 10000 AED tops. But please be aware that the PC is only half way where you want to go. Configuring FSX and the addons will become a major part of your life. And this forum will always be here to help.

 

Graphics card

MSI 4GD5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980

 

Processor

Intel® i7-4790K

 

Mainboard

MSI B85-G43 Gaming

 

RAM

Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3-1866MHz

(8 GB would suffice, but you never know)

 

HDD

Samsung 256GB 850 PRO (larger is better)

and/or

Seagate 2TB SSHD

 

(the shops shall figure out the rest, like the cooler and PSU, and they should assemble the thing)

 

This should set you up for a resonably pleasant FSX experience, and you have some juice left to do other things with that PC as well.

 

(The plan here is to install Windows and FSX on the SSD, and your sceneries on the SSHD. The surplus RAM can be used as a RAMDrive for some FSX folders.)

[jayviator]

Well, i'd find out which has the most bang-for-buck, has a better CPU and speed (high cpu clock speeds are the norm for FSX) and finally figure out which one is easier to upgrade if you sometime would like to upgrade components. If you are simply asking which is better i'd say MSI or Alienware.

[Rupert]

Hi Yajvan,

Folow nuitkati's advice. I think with that you will have one of the top 5% fastest personal computers in all of Abu Dhabi.

You will have high framerates.

 

il88pp

 

+1! Nuitaki has given some of the best advice I've seen on the board. I believe he can get as much FSX bang for the buck as anyone out there. And unlike many of us, he obviously has local knowledge as well.

[darryl737]

We live in different worlds obviously. And we seem to have very different attitudes, sorry to say that. You do not know what I do for a living, yet you assume I do not know what I am talking about. Suit yourself.

 

In my book $750 is hardly middle of the road, this is over the top. The "middle" region for me is the $100-300 bracket, and the top of the line starts at $500 plus.

 

Well I was talking NZ dollars which you would know had you taken the time to see my location. I don't assume anything about you or what you do or don't do. All assumptions have been on your part. I also haven't said you don't know what you are talking about, in fact I think the very opposite, your advice has been solid. Again you assumed I thought the opposite.

[cavalierjan19]

Hi,

Nuitaki's advice is very good, however the motherboard he has chosen, MSI B85 isn't in my opinion suitable for the CPU, as it doesn't support overclocking. Assuming the motherboard has to be MSI, an MSI Z97 Gaming series motherboard will be fine. The -4790K will work just right with the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 motherboard. That's (just) my opinion.

Hope it helps,

Jan

[il88pp]

You're right cavalierjan, I thought the B85 allowed overclock, but no.

The Z97 Chipset would be better for that. It will allow the CPU to run faster.

[evm]

HI, sure the Z97 will work too, whatever is available.

 

From his responses I figured the OP won't get into OCing much, but I might be wrong. The MSI desktops have this omnious button that puts the CPU into turbo mode permanently AFAIK. This might not be a good thing to have when the system is overclocked (although i think it gets disabled when you OC).

 

The second thought was, that this is a fair amount of money, and I figured that he might be better off with a full build/integrated system with warranty and all (Like a guy he can go to and kick on the shins when something does not work) and not OCing it himself.

[evm]

Oh, and you might want to stay away from Windows 8. See that they give you Win 10 with the PC right away (or Win 7). And factor in a good monitor as well, with low latency and a good field of view.

 

How are you set up with flight controls? Joystick/yoke, pedals, throttle quadrant? How serious do you want to get with this?