Computer Upgrade or New PC?

Greetings Fellow Simmers,

It's that time again when Windows 10 needs a fresh install and new games are crying foul on my hardware.

I've invested a lot of money and time on ORBX addons for FSX so primarily I'm looking to run these well and also to reduce the long time FSX takes to load.

It would be environmentally friendly if I could upgrade my present system but am open to purchasing a new one if it's the better alternative.

My present system comprises

Case - Thermaltake Element G Mid Tower

Power supply – 750 Watt “FSP” Aurum Series Modular PSU,80 PLUS Gold,120mm Fan

Motherboard - Gigabyte X58A-UD3R

Processor – Intel Core i7 975 Extreme Edition @ 3.33GHz with Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 Cooler

Memory – 6Gb[3 x 2Gb] Corsair Dominator DDR3 XMS 3 TR3X6G1600 C7 Version 2.2 Upgraded to 12 GB May 2017

Graphics Card - PalitGF GTX 670 JETSTREAM EDITION PCI-E 3.0 2GB 256-bit

Hard Drives – 2 x Seagate 1TB 7000rpm

Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB 10000rpm [Running Flight Simulator X but now to small.]

3TB Hard Drive for Storage

Monitor – Samsung 24” 2443BWPlus Viewsonic 19” VA903

My research so far seems to indicate

1.A faster processor would be useful for FSX but which one?

2.A better Video Card and better power supply is needed, such as the 1080's, but would the 1060-70's be sufficient.

3.Am considering a 1TB SSD Drive for Windows and FSX to hopefully speed up load times and frame rates.

Is this a good configuration or would they be better on separate drives such as a 250 for Windows and a 500 for FSX?

Your advice and input would be gratefully appreciated,

Jesper Hansen

Video card won't make much of an improvement. I wouldn't waste money on a 1080. Especilly since the GPU prices are very inflated right now do to the Bitcoin mining rage. You could use a GTX 1050TI quite nicely. Depending on how old the PSU is, I wouldn't replace it. FSP is a good brand that I have read. A PSU should be replaced every 5-7 years though at least. I just got done replacing mine.

You want the fastest single thread capable CPU you can afford. But to tell you the truth, there's little difference between a Coffee Lake and a Skylake CPU in terms of single thread ability so I've read. So you could get by on an i7 6700K or use what I have, an i5 6600K. Even then, you may not get the performance you desire without turning down some settings. If only FS was multi threaded...

1) I would recommend an I7 7700K CPU. It runs FSX at 4.5 Ghz with all sliders to full right, except for traffic which I have at 50%, but you may need a new motherboard. It can also be overclocked, but I have experienced no need for that.

2) A GTX 1060 with 6GB memory would be fine, your PS should be adequate if in good shape.

3) I highly recommend the SSD, it will greatly decrease loading times, but does little for FPS - the 7700K will take care of that! I don't think anything will be gained by separate SSD's.

Intel Core i7-7700K @ 4.5GHz; NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti 11GB GDDR5X; 16GB DDR4-3000 RAM; 500GB SSD + 2TB HDD; Windows 10 Pro 64-bit; 34" 21:9 curved 4K Monitor

Thanks for the helpful input everyone.

I'm working my way through all the forum posts and adjusting my wishlist accordingly.

Just for fun I built a super system on one of the computer websites and it came out nearly half the price of a small car!

Happy Simming,

Jesper

I'm running my FSX on a new Notebook MSI, see my signature below, on notebook screen, FSX location Seattle FPS 30-38, then plug the MSI HDMI, my FPS go up to 38-42 Seattle.

Other Airports steady 50-60 FPS. Screen using for HDMI our new LG OLED 65", FANTASTIC!