Hi Peoples

I want to build a new pc (Or buy) that is water cooled and is capable of handling fsx with directX10 at least at half the quality settings if not more.

I would like to have pci-express and have as much watercooled as possible, had thought of Zalmin fanless towers but not sure if that would take enough heat away if running fsx for a while.

I have a budget of around £700 and I can use my current AOC 19" monitor.  I will not be using wnything from my old pc as I want this model to be just for gaming, no internet.

Any suggestions would be appreciated  
I would preffer AMD but not to sure on how important the intel L2cache is as they are 2 - 4 mb.
Also ATI or Nivide?

Hope to hear some good news soon as I will be ordering this hopefully within the next 3 weeks.
Thanks all

Well, I am very happy with my build - its not the best as I was on a strict budget -  with hindsight I would have got a better board.

I bought an Asus p5n-e sli with an intel E6600 duo processor. I instantly overclocked it 20 percent - and with 2 gig of ram and a mediocre graphics card  - I am well chuffed with FSX, which gives me 20 frames nearly every where. If you go for my board - you have to watch which memory you put in - to overclock it. I got an NVidia graphics card 6900 gs = I was running out of cash - or I would have got a better one.

If I was doing it again I would go for an Asus P5B Deluxe WIFI Socket 775 Core 2 Duo P965 FSB1066 DDR2 SATA Audio ATX
The reason is simple

You get WiFi chucked in free - so you save a card slot.

Its easily and greatly overclockable and ready for quad processors when they come out - I think.

It does not cost too much

It may take more than 2 gig memory  -mine only does 2 gig.

Put a Intel chippy on it such as E6700 - and it will do your FSX proud.

I would not bother with water cooling - unless you want silence - 'cos it  costs a lot.

My 20% overclocked set up runs at 40 degrees processor and m board 33 degrees with standard cooler fans and a 120 mm fan bolted to the side with a big hole punched in the side cover to get good air flow. It is not noisy - but I plan to cover the insides with sponge foam to reduce noisy further, and change the fans to ball bearing ones. In hindsight  -i think the noise is from poor air circulation - so I punched holes sides and back of the case - and it really quietened it!! The case was the cheapest i could get and only cost £9.


Good luck

volunteer



For reference here was my budget:

hipper 580w type m psu sli certified  £45
tower case                                       £9
LG gsa dvd drive                             £17
OEM Vista                                        £59 ( which is wonderful - don't listen to all the moaners)
P5N E Sli board                               £63
E6600 Intel chippy                           £162
memory OCZ 2gb PC2 6400 4 4 4 12 £145
Caviar hard drive 120 gb                    £31
                                                      VAT 110
total £744.57 from ebuyers

Wifi is important as the new FSX is really good when flying with others on the internet. My plan was to get a hundred pound graphics card - and upgrade when it was economic too. And put the old one on EBay. Ditto the processor.

I was planning to get a ten pound desk fan and poke it into the case, as a cooler. But I don't need it -the 120 mm hole cut in the side with a 120 mm fan : really cools it down - most of the air flow was strangled by the cases own baffles and grids where the fan goes. I don't think efficient cooling need be noisy. My overclocking 20% - only puts puts the internal temp up by 2 degrees.

I think if you get a NVidia board- then it works best if everything is NVidia - ie: SLI cards etc. Don't mix and match (ie: NVidia chip set board and ATI graphics card)! A SLI set up wil be good - yes.

My board gets a good write up - if you google it - but it only has a couple of card slots - so, one for the sound card (an upgrade) and one for the Wifi - and yr done for.

I heard that Intel chippy's are the way to go - AMD chips are not as fast.