What PC for FSX?

Hi

Looking for a PC to play FSX (2008)

I don't know a lot at all and find all the technical details a bit overwhelming. I'm just an amateur, not after anything super ££. Used to play a lot on FSX when younger and don't have that PC anymore.

What do I need to look for?

Thanks

I'm not too great at picking out computer parts for people since I feel it's largely user choice on what they want and their preferences for what manufactures they prefer. What I can tell you now off the bat is that you should aim for at least an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X or spend ~ $30 more for the 3800X. AMD is pretty much the game in town right now that is not only cheaper, but very comparable to a comparable Intel CPU.

Since FSX and even FS2004 are largely single threaded games, you'll want good single thread performance. A PassMark comparison between the the 3700X and 3800X reveals that the 3700X has 2,690 points while the 3800X has 2,745 points for single thread performance. So the 3800X has 55 more points for around ~ $30 more. Not really worth it in my opinion. So I'd look at a 3700X. https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html#

Now on a cheaper price point with a 6 core rather than an 8 core (remember, FSX is single threaded so doesn't matter), the AMD Ryzen 5 3600 has 2,586 points in the single threaded department. This is only 104 points lower than the 3700X. The AMD 5 3600 is ~ $200 right now.

So if you want to go on the cheap and save a bunch of money, go with the AMD 5 3600 or if you plan on playing other games and doing other CPU intensive tasks then go with an AMD 3700X. Price difference is about ~ $50.

You could use the PCPartPicker website to pick and add parts to create a list, buy the parts and have a local reputable PC shop build it for you if you don't know how to build a PC. By your use of the £, I assume you live in the UK so I'm not sure if PCPartPicker shows PC part vendors for your area or not.

I'd be apt to gravitate towards an ASUS motherboard right now with an X570 series chipset. When you pick RAM, make sure it's on the motherboard manufacture's KVL list. This list can be found at their website for the motherboard.

If you have no clue how to do all this, I suppose I could throw together something from PCPartPicker and give you the link. I just need your budget on how much you're willing to spend and any manufacturer preferences.

When it comes to PC part manufacturers, I do have my own preferences like anyone else. SSD flash memory HDDs: Crucial (Micron). RAM: Crucial (Micron). Platter HDDs: Hitachi enterprise. CPU: Used to be all Intel, I'm going AMD later on. PSU: Antec. That's pretty much the bulk of it except for the niche stuff like case, CPU cooler, dedicated sound card and my Blu-ray burner. For those, Cooler Master, Cooler Master, Creative Sound Blaster (My Z has been pretty good) and Pioneer.

Just to keep my response simple, I usually recommend for FSX:

-desktop PC

-at least 16 GB of RAM

-CPU with at least 3.5 GHz base frequency

-at least 2 GB of video memory

-SSD (solid state drive)