Possible 2 new PC's I'm looking at for flight sim

Hello all,

 

Got my eye on these 2 machines I'm torn between, one with an AMD and the other with an Intel i5 9600K. Mind I am in no way PC tech savvy, so motherboards types, cooling and that I haven't a clue!

 

What I can tell you is my spec at the mo is a AMD Athlon II X3 425 processor 2.7GHz, 12GB RAM, nVidea GT730 (from the stone ages I think) and Win 7 premium 64-bit.

 

The first one:

 

https://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/Ultra-5-Gaming-PC

 

AMD Ryzen 5 2600X 6 core, not up to scratch with AMD products, nor do I know if the supplied AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB graphics card is worth it or not, though there is an option to upgrade to nVideo products, I'd be tempted with the 6GB GTX 1660 though this is standard in the other machine below I'm looking at.

 

Despite the picture the fans are not included, only cooling is AMD Ryzen Wraith CPU cooler. I'd need to fork out on extra case fans?

 

Also no optical DVD drive, there is no optical drive bays available. Not much of an issue as FSX and my other simulators are on Steam, I have a couple of apps I have on CD, and I do burn music CD's so I suspect I need an external CD/DVD writer drive. The other PC below is the same.

 

This has Win 10 Home as standard, but for an extra £20 or so can have Win 10 Pro, which would probably be the option though I can get £88 knocked off the price and buy a Windows 10 Pro key, I believe you can make a Windows 10 Pro boot drive on USB from Microsoft themselves.

 

 

The other one is:

 

https://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/range/novatechcoreblizzard.html

 

Only 8GB RAM, though I'd pay the £50 - £60 upgrade charge for the 16GB RAM (2 of the 8GB Vengeance cards), and there is an option to upgrade to the Intel i5 9600K 3.7GHz processor from the supplied 9400F 2.9 GHZ, which I'd be tempted with the upgrade.

 

I'd probably go for the no Operating System option as Win 10 Home 64-bit is the only other option, unless pro isn't really neccesary?

 

 

From what I've read even the most high spec PC would still bring FSX to it's knees due to the single core running (or something, as I say I'm not that tech!) but I might be tempted with P3D. I have FSX:SE and a lot of payware add-ons, most I can't use as my current PC can't handle it, but having things like UK2000 scenery, Aerosoft A320, Majestic DHC-8, OrbX England and Scotland, Many Aerosoft Pro airports that I've not managed to experience, means I'd have to loose all that if I go to P3D and buy everything over again.

 

 

The above machines are within my budget with upgrades, I'd only be tempted with £1,000+ machines on finance, not ideal but if the above machines would suffice FSX I'd be happy, with the PMDG, Aerosoft etc addons, even at just 40FPS

 

 

Anyone's opinion in these machines is most appreciated, I've spent 4 hours looking at both of these and I'm stuck for which one to get!

 

 

 

Kind Regards,

 

James.

I don't know anything about the machines you've mentioned, but don't overlook Digital Storm ( https://www.digitalstorm.com/ ) as a possible source. I've had one of their machines for about 10 years now, and it's still going strong with FSX and P3D V2, not to mention my video editing software and other things. Love it.

I'm not qualified to make any suggestions about a machine with newer hardware but I make only a couple of generalized comments: Make yourself be patient about this and do research here and elsewhere. A couple of weeks or more on this size investment is a good idea.

 

FSX is 'mostly' single-core and cpu speed is crucial for good performance. I would recommend 4GHz as a minimum starting point (absolutely nothing that starts with a 2!).

 

The newest P3d (v4) is 64bit and can use extra memory but FSX and all previous versions (1 - 3) of P3d are 32-bit and only use 4G of (virtual) memory so FSX itself will not benefit from much more RAM - 8Gb is quite enough for FSX and additional activity such as browsers, music players, TrackIR. I purchased 16Gb for my build but ran it for perhaps a year on just 8 before I added that extra 8 for other games and saw no improvement in FSX/P3d with the extra 8.... but I don't fly those memory-hog big-iron haulers; they might use the extra memory.

 

SSD storage is recommended for storage, of course.

Again, Be Patient above all!

 

best wishes for a good buy that will make you smile,

 

Loyd