Simviation Forum - Gonna spend some money.....

Jun 12^th, 2011 at 4:00pm

gregj Offline
Colonel
I Fly Sim!
SWFL - Boozey Hurricanes mmmm

Posts: 105

Not that I have any necessarily - but if this were a game of logic, then it is both necessary and sufficient that I drop some coin on new(ish) hardwarr in anticipation of MS Flight and several other titles and personal computing needs. So what does anyone think of the following set up?

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6611013&s...

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4420236&s...

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6078267&s...

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=6052729&s...

I will keep my GTX 260, Case and PSU (750) for now.....

Asus Sabertooth Z77
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EVGA 670 4GB
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Reply #1 - Jun 13^th, 2011 at 12:20am

NNNG Ex Member

If you want a system to run future software then you're best waiting until that software arrives before you upgrade.

If you must upgrade now then I would go with a Core i5 2500K/2600K, 4gb/8gb DDR3-1600, ASUS P8P67 Pro mobo. If you want to go with AMD then make sure you get a motherboard with the new 990FX / 990X chipset because they support both current AMD processors as well as the AMD FX series of processors as which will be released later this year. The AMD Phenom II x6 1090T is decent but I would rather go Intel else wait for AMD FX-series of processors.

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Reply #2 - Jun 14^th, 2011 at 2:25pm

The Snake 87 Offline
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In Tippett We trust.
Michigan

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Here's my input also. You could also go the super money saver route like I did. In a sense... lol

I went with the AMD X2 555 Callisto @ 3.2GHz a core. But, the thing is I got the ASUS M4A77TD motherboard with Turbokey ($90 and has 6 core 125 watt cpu support also) and it unlocked the 2 hidden cores of my cpu. It was super easy, just press the number 4 on the motherboard's boot screen and viola. $90 for a quad core and another $90 for the motherboard, you simply can't beat that. And I'm running around 51c max on load using just air and Arctic Silver 5. Which is still kinda warm, but anything under 70c for the cpu is fine and anything under 55c for the gpu is fine. But I'm going to be moving to this stuff soon

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/7038/thr-41/Innovation_Cooling_Diamond_7_Carat...

From what I've heard and the reviews on that site, it's simply amazing.

Anyway here's what I would recommend. I would actually sell your GTX 260 if I were you and use that money to put towards a newer GPU. You could get around $150 for those still I think depending on the memory it has, and upgrade to this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130568

I have the 1GB EVGA GTX 460 SE which has like 60 fewer cores and I can run 100% max settings on pretty much every game I have, and some I have are intense graphic wise. Dirt 3, NFS Hot Pursuit, Just Cause 2. Even Flight Sim X, I play in 100% max. So depending on how the new game will be (haven't seen anything about it yet, I probably a little behind unlike you guys) you will be set for a few years with that GFx card.

I'd stick with that CPU you have too, but maybe look into this motherboard.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131651

Same USB 3.0 and SATA 6.0 but has support for up to 16GB of ram instead of 8 like the Gigabyte one. And it's only $3 more. Or if you're willing to splurge another $40 for a motherboard (I'll show you a different heat sink in a minute which will save some $ anyway) then look into this motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131631

For RAM, I have 1 set of these and scored a 7.5 in Windows Experience (I have 7.5 in ram, 7.3 in graphics, 7.3 in processor, and 5.9 in hard drives but of course they will always score lower, but WE is only out of 7.9 too)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211364

Super solid RAM. My motherboard preset them to 667mhz though, but they have been running so well I don't need to go to the BIOS to OC them. If you get 2 sets of those you're set. And you're only gonna spend $3 more.

Last but not least, the heat sink.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103057&Tpk=cooler%20mas...

I decided to save money on my part and just run the stock heat sink (which surprisingly, has been great for me, because I've heard stock AMD ones a garbage) but anyway I was planning on this one. It's pretty close to the V8, it does its job and does it well and doesn't take up as much space. I'd recommend this over the V8, and if you get that diamond compound, you're golden.

Those are just my ideas. Not to put down NNNG's, I just thought my thoughts would help too. Your PSU should be good for a while too. I'm running a 550 watt with my set up, 3 hard drives, fan controller on 4 fans, and have been utterly flawless.

Phoenix Coyotes fan in Michigan. Yeeeaah booii.

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Reply #3 - Jun 15^th, 2011 at 1:35am

NNNG Ex Member

Quote:

It was super easy, just press the number 4 on the motherboard's boot screen and viola. $90 for a quad core and another $90 for the motherboard, you simply can't beat that.

Remember that not all processors can unlock into quad cores. As far as I know it's possible that you could of bought an externally identical AMD X2 555 Callisto that didn't unlock. Wink

Quote:

Anyway here's what I would recommend. I would actually sell your GTX 260 if I were you and use that money to put towards a newer GPU. You could get around $150 for those still I think depending on the memory it has, and upgrade to this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130568

Get a GTX 560 instead, very similar to GTX 460 but runs at 810mhz rather than 675mhz. Or get GTX 560-Ti for a little bit extra. I don't think he should bother with a vanilla GTX 460 especially the GTX 460 SE (Slow Edition) because it is barely faster than a GTX 260 core 216. Not worth the time and effort to upgrade to something slightly better that will soon start to struggle playing games maxed out at 1920*1200.

Get a AM3+ motherboard if you go AMD, cheapest decent one that I know of is ASUS M5A97 EVO for $110. Full support for AMD FX-series (Bulldozer) and existing processors. It should be available on the internet shortly. Review: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/M5A97_EVO/ Gives extra upgradability for the future and has some nice features like UEFI (etc..). I wouldn't bother with anything other than a motherboard with a 9xx series chipset.

Also get DDR3-1600 IMHO.

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Reply #4 - Jun 15^th, 2011 at 11:06pm

gregj Offline
Colonel
I Fly Sim!
SWFL - Boozey Hurricanes mmmm

Posts: 105

I would happily sell the 260 and ...a gts 8800 that I have as well. I guess I don't have enough posts at EVGA to put these on the buy/sell board. Neither card has been overclocked....mostly b/c I don't know how Huh

the gts has 320 MB ram....
the GtX is 1 gig
(I did RMA it back to EVGA, but they sent it promptly back as it was not the card rather the power supply)

I think I would want to off load both of these at once...any takers? Name a price.....

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Reply #5 - Jun 15^th, 2011 at 11:56pm

The Snake 87 Offline
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In Tippett We trust.
Michigan

Gender:
Posts: 145

Try forums.nvidia.com

That's where I sold an old 9600GT I never used. Just in your post try your best to show you're legit and check your topic often. Bump it once a day too, that helps a lot. If I had the money... and higher wattage PSU... and a SLi mobo I would have bought your 8800 for a Physx card. But sadly I can't...

And with my 460, I didn't know that's what it stood for. I bought it because of price (gotta stick to the budget XD) and power usage because if I got the regular 460 or a superclocked one, I would have needed a new PSU (and I'm running 1440x900 on 2 monitors so that's probably why I'm at max so easy)

With the CPU, I've heard it's a 50/50 chance you get one that unlocks, but I've heard lately more people have been getting ones that do unlock, and since they run so well just as a dual core IMHO it would be a very low risk high reward type risk to take.

Idk, that was just my opinion, it's your money and I'm a little out of the loop of things because I don't really need to keep up on comp parts as much for the fact I finally finished my rig. Do what you want to do man.

Phoenix Coyotes fan in Michigan. Yeeeaah booii.

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Reply #6 - Jun 16^th, 2011 at 3:00pm

gregj Offline
Colonel
I Fly Sim!
SWFL - Boozey Hurricanes mmmm

Posts: 105

So here it is (as of yet not set up)

Asus M4A79XT
EVGA GTX 460
AMD Phenom II 1100T (got it for same price as 1090T) Black Edition
2x4 Ghz Kingston ddr3 (had to go a little cheaper somewhere)
Win 7
TOTAL? too much and no where near enough $700

this better fly ms flight well......

btw if someone is interested in my old EVGA GTX 260 and EVGA 8800 GTS I'll sell em both for $125 - you pay shipping... never been oc'd

Asus Sabertooth Z77
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EVGA 670 4GB
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Reply #7 - Jun 18^th, 2011 at 11:41pm

Speed of flight Offline
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Chasing the elusive "faster
than yesterday" goal.

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gregj wrote on Jun 16^th, 2011 at 3:00pm:

So here it is (as of yet not set up)

Asus M4A79XT
EVGA GTX 460
AMD Phenom II 1100T (got it for same price as 1090T) Black Edition
2x4 Ghz Kingston ddr3 (had to go a little cheaper somewhere)
Win 7
TOTAL? too much and no where near enough $700

this better fly ms flight well......

btw if someone is interested in my old EVGA GTX 260 and EVGA 8800 GTS I'll sell em both for $125 - you pay shipping... never been oc'd

Consider these, if your budget allows...

http://www.frys.com/product/6484202?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG or this: http://www.frys.com/product/6618814?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Stick one of those on one of these (or something similar as other AM3+ 990FX boards come out):

http://www.frys.com/product/6650164?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Put it all in here:

http://www.frys.com/product/6273980?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

And throw one or two of these in there with it:

http://www.frys.com/product/6567993?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

And power it all with this:

http://www.frys.com/product/5278587

This will blister your eyeballs. And, quite possibly the two better steps than one I've got. $300 more than what you picked, but hey; it's only money. Just something to consider. This should give MS "Flight" a good run for its money.

I've always found Frys.com fairly cheap compared to others, but there's one nearby, and I save on shipping.

Hope this helps...

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AMD 8350 @4.65 GHz on H100i (226.8 x 20.5)
8 GB DDR3 1814 MHz CL8
ATI 6870 HD Radeon 1 GB
Antec 850 W PSU
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500 GB and 200 GB HDDs
Windows 7x64
VRS F/A-18E Superbug, PMDG 747-400 & -8 and MD-11, Captainsim 777, Iris F-14A&B and A-10, Area 51 C-5M Super Galaxy and C-17, loads of others.

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Reply #8 - Jun 19^th, 2011 at 1:39am

NNNG Ex Member

I think the OP has already bought the system.

But here's what I would get anyway. If multiple choices are shown then they are in order of preference. Most prices from newegg.

______ PROCESSOR & MOTHERBOARD

Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge $219.99 (will overclock easily to around 4.6ghz usually (>5ghz if you really push it), much greater intructions per clock cycle than anything else except the more expensive i7-2600K)
GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 (or similar P67 / Z68 board) $169.99

OR

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T $199.99 (or maybe AMD FX-8xxx 8 core processors when released at end of year)
ASUS M5A97 EVO AM3+ (or similar AM3+ board using 9xx series chipset) $110 (not released yet)
(I wouldn't bother with AMD quad cores anymore if and only if you're spending around $200. Sandy Bridge destroys them).

______ RAM

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB DDR3-1600 7-8-7-24 (or similar) $130
or
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB DDR3-1600 6-8-6-24 (or similar) $75

(I think the memory controller on some AMD processors cannot handle these speeds and timings, but I think the newer steppings are OK)

_______ GRAPHICS CARD

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr II OC $290 (also if you get a Radeon 6950 2gb with reference design, you may be able to flash it to Radeon 6970 spec).
or
MSI N560GTX-Ti Twin Frozr II $240
or
MSI R6870 Hawk Radeon $220

_______ CASE

Fractal Design Define R3 Black $110

_______ POWER SUPPLY

KINGWIN Lazer Gold Series LZG-700 700W $155
or
Corsair HX-650 $120
or
Superflower Golden Green 650 watt $?

(A PC built with the most power hungry parts here, even massively overclocked will not break 625 watt, so anything more than about 700 watt is a waste IMHO)

And throw in a OCZ Agility 3 120gb SSD of course.

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Reply #9 - Jun 22^nd, 2011 at 12:13am

gregj Offline
Colonel
I Fly Sim!
SWFL - Boozey Hurricanes mmmm

Posts: 105

I did indeed make my purchases...although I am considering an SSD at the present. So far almost everything works very well. My FSX flying is much better as a result no glitchies. I am impressed with the GTX 460 and how it allows me to run all settings maxed out.

Asus Sabertooth Z77
Intel I-7 3770K
EVGA 670 4GB
16 Ghz Corsair Dominator
Barracuda 1-TB

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