Badger Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Good evening all .... For ages now I've had problems with blurries with FSX so I've decided to invest in a new PC (don't tell Mrs Badger though!!). My current specs are as follows: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe PCI-Express Mainboard-ATX 550W PSU 2048MB DDR400 Memory 250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer 256MB nVidia GeForce 8800GT - TV-Out - DVI - PCI -Express 19" Viewsonic TFT Flat Panel Monitor - DVI (8ms) and I'm considering either this: Intel® Core™ i7 920 Quad Core Processor (2.66GHz,8MB Cache,4.8GT/s) Windows Vista™ Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit - English NZXT HUSH Silent Brushed Aluminium ATX Midi Tower - Black + 950W PSU ASUS P6T Mainboard - Intel Core™ i7 - ATX - Dual Mode SLI & CrossfireX 6GB 1333MHz Triple Channel DDR3 SDRAM - ( 3x2GB ) 1TB (1x 1000GB) Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive with 32MB Buffer 2x 512MB ATi 4850 Graphics accelerator (CrossFire for Ultimate Gaming) [upg £ 177.00] or this: CoolerMaster Real Power Pro 1000W PSU, ASUS P5N-D, Intel® Core™2 Quad Q9550 Quad Core 4x2.83GHz 12MB cache, Coolermaster Hyper TX2 Fan, Corsair XMS2 8GB (4x2GB) DDR2 800MHz, 320GB 7200RPM SATA II, 500GB 7200RPM SATA II, BFG NVidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB, Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 Home Premium (64-bit), I'm assuming that if I'm spending the sought of cash this will cost that FSX will run like a dream and that I will never have to worry about blurries, low FPS etc again, but out of the two, which one looks the best to you guys? Cheers Badger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Routley Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 Hey Badger, I'll leave it up to others to critique more accurately (I'm assuming they cost about the same) My Corei7 runs well - but to be truly great - I suspect it needs to evolve as a platform - and it is likely the first gen MBs will end up being slow down the track. Either will be good ... but if it's a dedicated FS machine, you might want to look at Win7 64 beta (which is apparently doing well for a lot of people) Consider changing to a dedicated RAID0 set of 300G velociraptors for FSX - they are screamingly fast and (IMHO) well worth it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted February 14, 2009 Author Share Posted February 14, 2009 Thanks hcornea I've read a fair bit about the two CPUs and some say the Q9550 will be obsolete in a few years and others share the same opinion as you regarding the i7 and I guess as someone that uses one, that's really helpful to know. The Q9550 rig is a hundred £ less or so but it does have the GTX285 card which I suspect will be better that the other set up. Anyway, I'm stuck between the two at the moment so thanks for your help. It'll help sway my decision. The velociraptors are a tad expensive (an extra £100 per drive). Are they really worth the difference? Cheers and thanks again Badger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Routley Posted February 14, 2009 Share Posted February 14, 2009 The velociraptors are a tad expensive (an extra £100 per drive). Are they really worth the differenceIf you're impatient with load speeds - like me. Bear in mind though - I do develop some scenery - which is more prone to stop / start / restart / slewing. It will not improve your frames - but with the texture loads / scenery complexity getting larger - I have enjoyed the improved load speed immensely! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted February 14, 2009 Author Share Posted February 14, 2009 Thanks again Ian, I think I'll go with the Q9550 option and have a look at the cost of changing one of the drives over. Badger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotspot Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 The Q9550 rig is a hundred £ less or so but it does have the GTX285 card which I suspect will be better that the other set up. Badger Hi Badger, Just for info, on one of my rigs I've been running a Q9550 (not clocked) for a few months now, initially with two GTX280's in SLI, but now on a single GTX280. Another rig runs on an E8600 (not clocked), with a single GTX280, and runs FSX/FTX smoother than the Q9550, as does a third rig with only an E8500 also not clocked with a GTX280. Unless you wish to clock the Q9550 I can't see it being a good move vis a vis the i7, but I'm no guru and haven't clocked the Q9550 or used an i7 - just my thoughts based on using the three CPU's specified above. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Routley Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 Some have been more effusive with their Corei7 - so perhaps they might chime in here. Mine has been good -- great? Maybe I need to time to tweak it a bit further. I can't understand how an E8600 outstrips the Q9550's in FSX SP2 - but there is clearly more to it than just clock speed and GPU. Certainly there have been some excellent performances out of older architecture ... with the right MoBo and Memory and tuned properly. I wouldn;t want to put you off the i7 necessarilly - but be careful of what else you put with it. FWIW - I have a Gighabyte MoBo - and I notice that the more enthusiastic members usually have P6T based boards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tennyson Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 I was an early adopter with the i7 (wrote a detailed article on the forum last November when i bought it). The Asus is a fine board and I've had many of them. I never had a problem until a few months ago when mt P6T threw the towel in and wouldn't start. I had to wait 6 weeks to get it back. Had all sorts of bullshit from the dsitributors but technically the problem was with the BIOS. Make sure your BIOS version is 1102 or later, otherwise it's unstable with RAM. Had it back now for a week and it's the best thing since sliced cheese. Wouldn't go back to quad core for all the tea in china. I also first loaded up my i7 940 with 12gb of 1333mhz RAM and twin 9800GX2's in SLI. Wouldn't believe other members about SLI not working properly in FSX until I tried taking one out and it ran a lot better. Upside was that I had a better machine and also a spare 700 buck card that I employed elsewhere. Was also using 64 bit Windows 7 while my board was away (on a quad core) and it was amazing. However, I found it far too buggy and decided against reformatting my Vista 64 bit Ultimate. The platform is far more stable and for productivity that is a must. Hope some of these experiences may help you in your decisions, mate, Frank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted February 15, 2009 Author Share Posted February 15, 2009 Thanks for all your advice guys. I've gone with the Q9550 option with a couple of little tweaks as follows: Antec Nine Hundred - Advanced Gaming Case CoolerMaster Real Power Pro 1000W PSU ASUS P5N-D Intel® Core™2 Quad Q9550 Quad Core 4x2.83GHz 12MB cache Coolermaster Hyper TX2 Fan Corsair XMS2 8GB (4x2GB) DDR2 800MHz 500GB 7200RPM SATA II 500GB 7200RPM SATA II Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD RW Black SATA BFG NVidia GeForce GTX 285 1GB Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 Home Premium (64-bit) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio I'm rather hoping for a spectacular improvement over my existing set up when the new machine arrives. It's all very exciting and I just hope I'm not disappointed with it when it arrives. Thanks for all your advice. Badger Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Routley Posted February 15, 2009 Share Posted February 15, 2009 It is indeed exciting. I wish you well with it. Vista64 takes a little persevering with (if you haven't used it before) - but with SP1 it is stable - and the extra mem seems to help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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