Advice on PC for FSX please?

Hi Everyone

I am looking to purchase a PC for son to play FSX on to a decent standard and have been looking at one with the following specs...

 

i5 Quad Core 2400 3.10GHz

8GB DDR3 RAM

1TB 7.2K Sata 3.5” Hard Drive

GTX 4GB 1050Ti

Windows 10

 

Can anyone say what sort of performance he'd get from that?

 

Many thanks in advance

Hi Everyone

I am looking to purchase a PC for son to play FSX on to a decent standard and have been looking at one with the following specs...

 

i5 Quad Core 2400 3.10GHz

8GB DDR3 RAM

1TB 7.2K Sata 3.5” Hard Drive

GTX 4GB 1050Ti

Windows 10

 

or option 2

 

i5 4440 3.10GHz

8GB DDR3 RAM

500GB Hard Drive

4GB GTX 1050Ti

 

Can anyone say what sort of performance he'd get from that?

 

Many thanks in advance

As long as he kept his scenery and AI sliders middlin' to low, it should work OK. Not GREAT, but OK.

 

If you want a ton of eye-candy, a million FPS, it wouldn't be worth a darn. If you want all that, you'll need an i7 processor.

 

If you want a decent simulation of the way aircraft fly, without seeing your house from 39,000', that PC would work pretty well. You might need some FSX.CFG file adjustments, and/or additions, but it'd be OK.

 

You should download and install NVidea Inspector to run you GFX card properly, as well.

 

All this is, of course, strictly MY personal opinion, for whatever it worth.

Pat☺

Thanks for your reply Pat, I'm now looking at this one, better?

 

Intel Core i7 2600 @ 3.40Ghz

16GB RAM DDR3

1TB

Windows 10

4GB GTX 1050Ti

Get him a 500gb or so ssd on top of that hdd.

3.4 is better. 3.1 was low. But 2600 (2nd gen. (starting with 2)) is very old. 8years or so. Better go for something recent. 8600 or so.

Sounds like you are on budget and buying second hand. If so link to the adds. As details matter. (Or if building yourself, mention that.)

FS is a CPU game. Meaning it uses the CPU more than anything and to boot it's a single threaded game. So you'd ideally want a CPU that is fast in the single thread department. If you look here and look at the scores, you can gauge on what CPU you can get with the best single threaded performance for your budget.

 

I've made numerous posts about this. Read the following:

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?313853-I-would-appreciate-your-thoughts-on-upgrading

 

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?313555-Building-a-new-desktop

FSX is fairly old so any new computer should be at least OK. I got good performance on a very ordinary win 7 laptop by experimenting with settings and dialing back features that weren't important to me. For example the "detail radius" can be set to minimum if you're flying through canyons. Weather, autogen and traffic can be minimum without affecting performance. Then if you want great looking water or terrain for example that can be set high.

Fsx is old but a processor fast enough to run it at full settings does not exist yet. So 'any computer is good enough' is utter nonsense.

 

You yourself may enjoy slow prop planes, using 2d panel only, and flying in clear weather. (Maybe because you always played fs9 so far.)

 

his son will want to play the default 737, 747, a321, and f18 fighter. If will want to enjoy the fun of the 3d virtual cockpits. If will want to buy and use detailed addon planes that require a good pc. Maybe also high detailed scenery's like aerosoft airports, and OrbX scenery. And probably would like to fight his way through the occasional thunderstorm. He will need a darn good pc to be able to do all that.

 

3.4 is enough to get started and have a lot of fun. Can't run everything, but it's plenty to start. But don't get an 8years old cpu.

 

You need a reasonable graphics card too. (not just HDgraphics.)

Thanks for your advice everyone, I have finally decided on this one. Any opinions?

 

INTEL I7 7700K 4.2ghz

ASUS ROG Z270F MOTHERBOARD

16GB CORSAIR DDR4 3000MHZ RAM

EVGA 750W GOLD PSU

H100i v2 WATERCOOLER

ROG ASUS STRYX GTX1060 6GB GPU

EXTERNAL DVD WRITER

128 SSD

1TB SATA DRIVE

WINDOWS 10 PRO

 

I have since been told that there are compatibility issues with Windows 10 and FSX Gold so I'm assuming I am going to be better off getting FSX Steam?

Looks alright to me. You might want to use pcpartpicker to find the cheapest prices. You don't need 3000 speed RAM. The difference between water cooling and air cooling is like a few degrees at that. I don't bother and I don't want water coolant near my stuff. Leaks have happened to people.

 

Up the SSD to at least 256 GB. Why an external DVD/RW drive? You can buy an internal for around $22.

I'd say it looks great. I would just increase the ssd from 128. At least to 256gb, and preferably 512. (looking at buying a 500 gb ssd myself a.t.m.. I had a 256 gb but it's filling up now that my fsx grew to 65gb with all the addons.:))

128 is really very small.

 

Apart from that great choices. A separate dvd-writer makes sense if you want to use it with more then one pc. For example also with a laptop.

 

The pc you chose should last him a good 5 to 10 years at least. (it should be the bees knees for 5, and then be well usable for another 5 I mean.)

il.:D

I'm running 8GB ram, GT730 (4GB), I5 4460 and it is pretty good.

I have aircraft graphics on Ultra-high setting and everything else is high pretty much.

Only thing I have turned down is clouds. Clouds kill FPS.

Fsx is old but a processor fast enough to run it at full settings does not exist yet.

 

I'll take your word for that. Obviously a fast system would be best, I want that too. But in 2013 all I could afford was a $400 laptop and I got FSX looking pretty good with settings, guess I'll have to post some screen shots. True, slow prop planes, no weather and no add ons.