New system lessons

[waygo]

I'm just finishing up building a new system primarily for fsx. I went through a lot of different pieces of hardware so I thought I would pass along what I learned, in case it could benefit any of you.

Also, I'm not a computer genius or fsx know it all. Anything I say is of course debatable and open to opinions, especially if you having useful advise to offer.

Case: I started with the antec 900. I didn't like the airflow. I hated all the thumb screws. It didn't offer the option to install the psu fan down. It was to small to work in. When I later upgraded to water cooling, there was no room for the radiator for the h100i and when I switched to the gtx 680, I had to remove a drive bay for it to extend into. It also didnt have very well placed openings in the back wall for cable managment. If you're a build it and forget it person, it's probably fine, but I didn't care for it.

So I got the coolmaster HAF 932 advanced. Tooless feature is great. Wish it was on both sides of the case though for a better hold. Plenty of room for radiator and gtx 680. Side mounted drive bays are awesome for cable management. Good air flow. My only gripe is it didn't come with grommets for the back wall.

Mobo: I started with the asus z77 sabertooth. Love the thermal armor. Not sure it helps anything but looks good. I didn't have any noise issues with the 35mm fans like some reported. I upgraded the back fan to a 40mm noctua. Ultimately I had problems with the board though, rma for another one, had problems again and got a refund. I doubt there was anything wrong with the board in hind sight, but asus customer service was so awfull I gave up trying and got my money back.

Then I got the asus Maximus V Formula. On the sabertooth I was able to oc to 4.5. On the formula I immediately was able to get 4.6. I have a hard time getting 4.7 on synthetic bench tests, but I don't seem to have any problems running fsx at 4.7. If I was looking for a mobo today, I would consider the asrock formula oc, but I'm pretty happy with the Maximus V for now.

My CPU cooling started with the Noctua NH-D14. It just couldn't handle the heat from the 3370k. I had a hard time keeping the temps below 100 at 4.5 during benchmarks. So I switched the the corsair h100i. Now I can keep the temps in the 80s at 4.6, though I don't go above 70 with fsx.

RAM I started with G.Skill Ripjaws 1866 9cl, 8gb. When the Trident series came out with a 9cl 2400 I switched to that. No benefits to fsx, but I do some video rendering occasionally and it's good for that. Plus it went with my black and red theme ;-)

GPU: I started with the gigabyte gtx670 OC. Awesome card and oc to 1240. I was so impressed I switched to an Asus GTX680-DC2T expecting even better. Didn't turn out that way. Running Unigene Heaven at 5760x1080 on extreme settings, my fps was 18 and score was 470s with the 670. With the 680 I got upto 19 fps and a score of 490. Not worth the extra $150 for the 680, but I had it so I kept it.

So I bought another 680 to try sli. I had heard so many conflicting stories about sli stating there was no benefit in fsx, others said fsx would run worse with sli, some said it improved during out of the cockpit views but did not improve views in the cockpit.

Sli works with fsx by A LOT. Sorry if that statement makes some people think I'm going against proven research. (I don't believe in evolution either but some people tell me that's been proven too) This is what I found. With a single 680 running maxed sliders, mesh at 5, water at high 2x, no ground and plane shadows, no lense flair and bloom, but everything else maxed, I was getting 25-30 fps, sometimes in the 40s. With sli I am solidly in the 60s and over 100 at times. When I threw everything to max, I am still getting 30 fps. I no longer get blank dash when I go back into the cockpit, no gray prop circle outside the plane, I was getting horrible artifacts when panning around, now that's gone.

I've only been playing with sli a couple days, but it can only get better as I learn to tweak it some more. There is a downside though. The gtx680 takes up three spaces and in sli they sit right on top of each other. With a single gpu you never hear the fans rev up, but with two... Temps rise dramatically, though probably not dangerously. So my advise would be to go with the 670. Nearly the same performance with much better are flow. Asus also has a 680 4gb model now that only takes up two slots, but I wouldn't spend the extra money for it.

Something else Im finding out regarding saitek instrument panels. They don't seem to work on a 3.0 USB. I have eight panels and I started with two satechi USB hubs. Those are awful. Plug in more than six devices and the blue led starts getting dim from the power draw. If I had more than three instrument panels plugged into one hub, the panels would lock up, not power up, and whatever else. So I switched to Tripp lite hubs. The hubs themselves are fine, but if I plug into a 3.0 USB on my pc, the instrument panels lock up, the picture is washed out or they wont boot up. Plug the hub into a 2.0 slot, no more problems. I have a pic-e 3.0 USB with sata power coming too see if that improves anything.

I picked up three asus vs248h-p monitors over blackfriday for $140 each. Can't beat the price, but my next monitors will be IPS and 1200 rather than 1080.

Hope any of that might be useful to some.

[Hotspot]

Sounds like you've had a fun time - your experience with SLI mirrors mine - each build is done on a single card then I change to three screens with two cards and there is always better performance in FSX (on my builds) with two cards.

[Vonduck]

Just a question about installing another card... i have a GTX 670 and performs well... is it a real mission to install another card and get it to operate properly? Much tweaking of the bios etc?

Cheers!

[waygo]

... is it a real mission to install another card and get it to operate properly? Much tweaking of the bios etc?

When I first installed the performance went way down. After updating the drivers from nvidea, problem was solved. Otherwise it's pretty much plug and play.

[Vonduck]

Cheers Waygo!