Getting new desktop - recommendations?

HI

 

I am considering getting new desktop for FSX:SE, which I play with add-ons like PMDG aircrafts, Quality Wings, Aeorosoft, ORBX Global and Vectors, Mytraffic and want to play primarily in main airports with maxed out traffic and graphics.

I´ve looked at ASUS ROG STRIX 12CLM with following specs:

 

Intel Core i7-8700K 6-Core / 3.7 GHz - 4,7 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB, 16 GB DDR4 2666MHz (8 GB*2), 512GB PCIE M.2 SSD Hyper Drive + 1TB 7200RPM HDD, DVD-RW 8x, AC Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 4x USB-A 2.0, 6x USB-A 3.1 Gen1, 2x USB-C 3.1, Windows 10 64-bit

 

Is it enough or bit to overkill? Can I choose i7 7700 instead? And which monitor would you recommend too?

 

regards

Do you *need* those specs to run your setup well? No. But if you've got the cash, go for it :) IMO, stick with that CPU but you can still run your setup well on a lesser GPU. I don't game as much as I used to, so I cut way back on my latest build (Core i3, GT 1030) , but it still does amazing. Believe it or not I'm getting similar FPS and performance as my last build which had a 4th Gen Core i7 and GT 740. The tech has come so far that you don't have to spend a ton of money to have a nice build. As for monitors, that's a broad category, but I've always had Acer monitors. My last one was going strong for 8 years of heavy gaming, until I handed it down to my niece.

Also I'll add, if you want to mess with PMDG stuff and haven't already bought it, do yourself a favor and get P3Dv4 and then buy the PMDG stuff for it since you can't transfer their planes.

 

You will, guaranteed, get OOM crashes if you try to fly a PMDG plane on a realistic trip with high graphics settings, especially if you have addons like Orbx, traffic injectors, or weather generators running. Usually it will happen right as you're getting to the arrival point of your destination. You really need to get rid of that ram cap if you want to run everything maxxed out.

Wonders the value of 6 cores vs faster raw processing power for FSX-SE. Although the affinity mask caters in theory but ....

 

And totally agree with 64 bit option. I wouldn't buy a high spec PC for the sim alone but for the requirements and overheads of 3rd party add-ons which (in some cases) significantly improve the quality of the experience.

The 8700k has good single core ability. In fact, it's listed as second from the top in the single core Passmark scores.

 

Can you max everything out? NOPE! CPUs just don't have the single core benefits that M$ thought there would be by today when FS came out. You might be able to crank some settings up, but I'd still do that conservatively. And don't crank the FPS slider to the top. You're eye won't tell a difference between 25-30 FPS and you want to allow breathing room for the Sim to process instructions. CPU manufacturers have mostly focused on the multi threading capability over single thread capability. Why is that important in relation to FS? Because FS is largely a single threaded game. And FS is largely CPU-based. Meaning that most of its processing power is dedicated to the CPU and not the GPU. You have listed a GTX 1070, and unless you will use other games, it's not needed for FS at all. You could get by on a GTX 1050TI.

 

Your choice of HDD is listed as M.2. I can tell you right now that since that is still a SATA III interface, you will have the same speed as if you just bought a SSD. If you so desire, look into a motherboard that supports NVMe. NVMe uses a PCIe bus, not SATA. So speed is pretty damn fast. But to be honest, you more than likely won't see any speed difference between NVMe and a SATA III SSD unless you have some very demanding HDD orientated programs. The Sim really isn't one. An SSD will load terrain and what not perfectly fine. No NVMe drive needed. If one wanted unreal, AND I MEAN unreal speed. Get a 2011 platform and RAID 0 64 GB of RAM for a RAM drive. There is plenty of RAM drive software out there. Pick one that will create save states. I was going to do just this, but the 2011 platform is quite old, so I went Skylake 1151 as of now.

 

Make damn sure you install the Sim into the root of C drive, i.e. C:\FSX. You can change the path with Steam. So use a path like C:\Steam. Reason being is that Windows emulates/protects the program files folders and you'll have all kinds of issues with add-ons, etc if installed there. So it's better to install to the root of C drive only.

 

As far as OOMs, read my Sig below or do what was mentioned and consider Prepar3d.

 

Edit-

 

It appears M.2 can also use PCIe depending on the manufacture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2