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Need advice on basic H/W set-up for old uncle (Read 177 times)

Jun 22^nd, 2005 at 6:46pm

fjalar13 Offline
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Iceland

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I will be happily assisting my 75 year old uncle choose hardware to set up a basic and good Flight Sim environment . He is an old flight navigator and he loves lying instruments in as close to life environment as possible.
He dos have some money to spend on this.
Besides picking up a well spec-ed out PC system, a great graphics card and a big nice (flat?) monitor he also needs a yoke, throttle etc. but not a joystick.
He used to have an old CH product, really old, and an ancient version of FS, so any improvement will make him happy. I want to blow him away!
Any and all help appreciated, but remember, it should be comfortable and as maintenance free as possible, so no beta products or cutting edge stuff

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Reply #1 - Jun 23^rd, 2005 at 4:53pm

Dan Offline
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Can you give a figure of the amount of money this gentleman is going to put up for aforementioned rig? That way we can give a proper spec.

There are two schools of thought in my mind, if he wants to spend around £800 - £1000 or up to £15-1700.

For £800 he could get a nice enough AMD64 Set-up with a bottom of the range nVidia 6800 or a mid range 6600 would probably be a better choice. Get him at least 1Gb of nice RAM, such as GeIL probably.

If he has more money then get anything up to a FX57 or AMD X2.

BTW as its for FS an AMD core will come out on top over an Intel version.

Gimme a price!
Dan

&&3DMark01 || OCUK - The best UK shop

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Reply #2 - Jun 23^rd, 2005 at 5:12pm

the_autopilot Offline
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Agree with the above.

BTW, the fx-57 isn't out yet.

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Reply #3 - Jun 23^rd, 2005 at 5:37pm

Dan Offline
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I know.... Wink

But it will be good when it comes! Wink

&&3DMark01 || OCUK - The best UK shop

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Reply #4 - Jun 23^rd, 2005 at 5:49pm

the_autopilot Offline
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Of course. The fx-57 will dominate the CURRENT gaming market, even the dual cores. This is because of the how games are programmed (most games today are single-thread).

But to future proof, your uncle may want to get a dual core as games are starting to go that way (the way of multi-thread) in which a dual core would reign supreme.

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Reply #5 - Jun 23^rd, 2005 at 9:04pm

fjalar13 Offline
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Money is not really an issue

that is the fun part. But I guess he would probably not go further than what amounts to your buying power of say 1500 pounds.

No experimental systems! And If you could be so kind to spell put the acronyms for me

I guess it is an AMD processor
Nvidia card - what type?
1 GB RAM

How about yoke, rudder and throttle etc?
Monitor?

thanks guys.
F.

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Reply #6 - Jun 23^rd, 2005 at 10:10pm

4_Series_Scania Offline
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Quote:

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Venice 90nm (Socket 939) - OEM (CP-132-AM)
£154.95 £154.95
GeIL 1GB (2x512MB) PC4000 Ultra Platinum CAS2.5 (GL1GB4000DC) (MY-021-GL)
£89.95 £89.95
BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC 256MB DDR3 TV-Out/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (BFGR68256GTOCX) (GX-000-BG) X 2!
£224.95 £449.90
DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-011-DF)
£114.95 £114.95
Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 CPU Cooler (Socket 754/939/940) (FG-000-AR)
£14.95 £14.95
Samsung SpinPoint P SP1614C 160GB SATA 8MB Cache - OEM (HD-012-SA)
£54.95 £54.95
Coolermaster Wave Master - Silver (No PSU) (CA-037-CM)
£66.95 £66.95
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound (3.5g) (AC-000-AC)
£5.75 £5.75
Viewsonic VX912B X Series 19" LCD Monitor - Black/Silver (MO-014-VS)
£224.95 £224.95
Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU (CA-021-EN)
£74.95 £74.95
LG GSA-4163BA 16x16 DVD±RW Dual Layer ReWriter (Black) - OEM (CD-028-LG)
£29.90 £29.90
Subtotal £1,282.15
VAT £224.38
Total £1,506.53

www.overclockers.co.uk

Believe me that system for £1500, would satisfy the most avid gamer, especially if you replaced the 2 6800GT's for a single GeForce 7800 !!! Wink

I think your Uncle would have a great system! - I've forgotten the flight stick, but, I'm sure you'd get one for a few £ more....

My question is, does your 78year old uncle really need such a beast of a PC?, it'll be great, make no mistake, I can't help thinking he'd be equally well off with something £500 less,
Quote:

AMD Athlon 64 3700+ San Diego 90nm (Socket 939) - Retail (ADA3700BNBOX) (CP-121-AM) £209.95

DFI LanParty UT NF4 Ultra-D (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard (MB-014-DF) £89.95

G.Skill 1GB DDR ZX PC3200 (2x512MB) CAS2 Dual Channel Kit (F1-3200PHU2-1GBZX) (MY-002-GS) £69.95

Connect3D ATI Radeon X850 XT 256MB DDR3 VIVO TV-Out/DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail (GX-028-CO) £254.95

Maxtor MaxLine III NCQ 250GB 7L250SO SATA 16MB Cache - OEM (HD-053-MD) £89.95

Enermax Noisetaker 485W EG495AX-VE(G) SFMA ATX2.0 PSU (CA-007-EN) £59.95

Coolermaster Wave Master - Silver (No PSU) (CA-037-CM) £69.95

Subtotal £844.65
VAT £147.82
Total £992.47

- Edit opps! forgot a Monitor, but, you get my idea I'm sure.

Ultimately, its his money and £1500 should get you, pretty close to the best FS9 Graphics experience money can buy! 8)

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!

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Reply #7 - Jun 25^th, 2005 at 6:27am

Dan Offline
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Well Paul the thing here is 'future proofing' I think... Sure that lesser system you detailed there would easily satisfy most people, in two years or so he may not be so happy with it. I think what the_autopilot said about the increasing use of dual cores should be taken into account.

I would definitely go with the DFI Mobo, my only thoughts -

If money isn't an issue then maybe BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra should be considered - I have heard that a pair go really nice! I haven't got any experience of 7800's, but they might be worth looking at.

Get the best RAM available - G.Skill 1GB DDR FF PC4800. Personally I would get 2Gb, I know a lot of people have, but that would be a lot of money gone on RAM! Probably 1Gb of good quality is best.

As for HDD, as its got to be a 'nice' system I would avoid SCSI - although its fast a lump of metal spinning at 15'000rpm makes a fair bit of noise! Get some nice SATA's, I doubt the speed is going to be much of an issue but you could get any combination of Raptors + storage drives, or RAID some larger drives together. Up to you really!
Dan

P.s. fjalar13 - If any of this is going over your head then say yeah? Better than being confused! Wink

&&3DMark01 || OCUK - The best UK shop

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Reply #8 - Jun 25^th, 2005 at 6:25pm

the_autopilot Offline
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Quote:

If money isn't an issue then maybe BFG GeForce 6800 Ultra should be considered - I have heard that a pair go really nice! I haven't got any experience of 7800's, but they might be worth looking at.

A pair of 6800 ultras can cost more than a 7800 GTX and in many cases performs much worse.

The 7800 GTX is a new generation card and is future proof. I would recommend a single 7800 GTX over any SLI config bcause it costs less and is just as or sometimes even more powerful.

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