Newby computer recommendation help

[scotts59]

I am getting started in flight sims again after a few years (I actually had the original version of MS Flight Simulator back in the early 80's, green wireframe graphics and all!) I have been using FSX on an old laptop but want to go ahead and jump to a good system now. I'll be using CH pedals and yoke, and am looking at head tracking. I'm not going to be going super crazy but would like to run nice scenery add ons, realistic skies etc. the following is a system recommended by Velocity Micro at just under my budget of $1500, what do you think?

.

MX3 - Velocity Micro® Mid-Sized Chassis - Satin black pure aluminum, exclusive design with advanced cooling 500 Watt EVGA® Power Supply, 80Plus Bronze Certified, > 80% efficiency

Asus® H170M-Plus/CSM Intel® H170 based chipset, mATX Motherboard

Intel® CoreTM i5-6600 Processor, 4-core @ 3.3GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) with HT, 8MB L3 Cache (+$50.00) Genuine Intel® High Performance Heatsink, Plus 2 x 120mm side fans (+$35.00)

Standard thermal compound

8GB Crucial® BallistixTM DDR4-2400MHz (2 x 4GB), CAS 16 latency, low voltage

2GB EVGA® NVIDIA® GeForce GTX960 GDDR5 video card (+$190.00) None

Intel® High Definition 8-channel Audio

120GB Crucial® BX100 Solid State Drive - 535MBps Read/185MBps write speed (+$30.00) 1TB 7200rpm SATA 600 with 64MB Cache (+$70.00)

24x Asus® DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner Black

Integrated 10/100/1000MBps Gigabit Ethernet Network Adapter None

Microsoft® Windows® 10 Home, including original OEM Disk - NOW SHIPPING None

[il88pp]

Based on your story you are going to go nuts with addons. You haven't even installed fsx and are listing what you will get already, and with fsx you usually get more and more addons over time and hardly ever throw something out.

 

Regarding the pc:

Get better heatsink

make sure more casefans are possible if needed

get an ssd at least twice that size

make sure more ssd's can be attached.

 

I would get an atx board. More connectors, so more options later on. And parts further apart leads to slightly better cooling. And personal preference.

 

I use only one display, so I would not get that videocard, but something like the gtx 750ti instead.

[JSkorna]

That is a terrible system for $1500. You could build it yourself for half that price. And it wouldn't even run FSX that well.

[Rupert]

I agree! Building your own PC is very easy. Plus you can get exactly what you need for a ton less money! If you don't want to do it yourself, I'm sure someone close by can build it for you.

 

I'd definitely at least double the SSD size if I got one. (Which I did BTW.) But be aware, a SSD hugely speeds up your flight loadup. But a SSD doesn't really help much while actually flying.

 

A 500W power supply is really pretty low for a good performing system. Low wattage equals low voltage on the motherboard which causes unwanted heat on the board and chips.

 

I'd buy a less expensive GPU and use the money saved to buy a faster CPU. FSX is hugely CPU speed biased.

 

Remember more fans and better heat sinks will give much longer life.

[W2DR]

That is a terrible system for $1500. You could build it yourself for half that price. And it wouldn't even run FSX that well.

 

Terrible system? No. Can it run FSX at very high settings? Probably not. Can it run FSX quite well at medium settings? Absolutely. Too high priced? Not when you look at the competition. Remember, not everyone has the capabilities nor the desire to build their own system. Would I recommend building your own? Yes. But I also understand many, many people have no desire to do so. I think you're a little bit over the top here Jim.

 

To scotts59 I say welcome to the forum. One thing you'll find here is that all of us have an opinion (they're like bellybuttons, everybody has one) and many of are quite passionate about what we believe. Anyway, that system will run FSX pretty well as long as you don't try to crank the sliders up too high. But, I agree with il88pp, you really need to double the size of the SSD just to future proof other stuff besides FSX (which assume will go on HDD).

 

Please come back if you have more questions.

 

Doug

[JSkorna]

Doug,

 

Did you actually read what he wants to do with FSX?

 

It doesn't matter if he doesn't want to build his own. $1500 to even have someone build that particular system is still a rip off.

[cavalierjan19]

Hi,

Maybe this prebuilt is better: https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=1283286

It has a GTX970 an n i5, that you can overclock, the only slight problem might be the RAM, for 1500$ you can already get 16 gigs, but it's DDR4, so I kinda get that.

Hope it helps,

Jan

(writing from my new PC)

[W2DR]

Doug,

 

Did you actually read what he wants to do with FSX?

 

It doesn't matter if he doesn't want to build his own. $1500 to even have someone build that particular system is still a rip off.

 

Sure I read it. Seems to me all he's asking for is nice scenery and realistic skies. And that system will do that. Nobody's talking about the PMDG 777 with Drzewiecki NYC scenery. Depending on the source, the parts are going to cost somewhere between $980 and $1040. Add-in costs for parts shipping, completed product shipping, build time, warranty reserve, and profit and the $1400+ doesn't look so bad.

 

Doug