New Computer Specs......

[notgotaclue]

Hi,
I am about to order a new computer to make the most of FSX (now that Flight is a non-starter).
This is what I have come up with at Dinopc.

Customizations:
CPU: - Intel Core i7 2600K
CPU Cooler: - Xigmatek HDT-S963
Operating System: - Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard: - Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P
Memory: - 8.0GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (2x 4GB)
Hard Drives: - 500GB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
2nd hard drive: - Corsair 60GB Force3 SSD S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: - 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: - 2 x ATI Radeon HD 6870 1GB
Sound card: - Onboard 7.1 Audio
Internet: - Wireless 802.11N 300Mbps MIMO PCI card
Case: - Zalman Z9 Plus
PSU: - 700W Xigmatek
Warranty: - 3 Year Platinum Warranty
Price £1,198.87

I am not to geeky when it comes to computers and can anyone spot anything that I have missed, or a component that is not up to the job.
Would 2 graphics card be better than 1 higher quality?
Do I need a 2nd Hard Drive?
Thanks for any input.
Allan.

[fordgt40]

Allan

Just one thought, FSX is cpu hungry. I assume that you are going to overclock the I7 2600k to its maximum, if so, have you thought about getting a price from Overclockers http://www.overclockers.co.uk/ . They will provide complete systems to your spec and set up the system with appropriate cooling to run at say 4.6ghz and warranty it. FSX will benefit from this far more than a state of the art graphics card. Also 2 hard drives in a raid configuration will give you almost double the read/write speed

Regards

David

Edit others can advise whether for FSX it is worth paying the extra for I7 as opposed to I5

[Neil Hewitt]

+1 for Overclockers.

On the i7 vs i5 front - this question is frequently asked. Both the i7 2600K and the i5 2500K overclock really well. So what do you gain with the i7? Hyperthreading. This will not affect your FSX performance but for some operations it will gain you up to 50% extra performance. You also get an extra 2MB of on-die cache with the i7, which is not to be sneezed at. However, if this is mainly going to be a gaming PC then you could perhaps go with the i5 2500K instead and use the extra to buy something else shiny :-)

I'd recommend using only SSDs, assuming this PC is going to be FSX-only, or at least primarily. If you want lots of storage then HDDs are of course better - though SSDs paired with a RAID array for storage is a great answer to this. SSDs have just hit the magic £1 for 1GB mark - so a 120GB SSD can be had for about £120, maybe less if you shop around. Your new motherboard has SATA 3 on it, so you'll get up to 6Gbps transfer speeds.

You might consider one of the new hybrid water coolers. Previously, water cooling was a dark art practised only by the serious hardware wizards; but now, Corsair et al sell closed-loop water coolers that are as easy to fit as an air cooler - bolt the block down to the CPU in the same way you'd bolt down the air cooler, then screw the radiator assembly in place of the 120mm fan at the back of your case, and you're done. They're not as good as top-end water coolers, naturally, but you'll get 4.8GHz at lower temps than you would on air; and you could possibly push to 5GHz if your board and DRAM is good. I have the Corsair H80 - thumbs up for that from me.

I'm assuming you're going to use this as a rig for other games too? No need for the two GPUs if you're not. But if you're going to have the 2 of them, 700W on the PSU might be a little on the weedy side - I'd consider 800 or even 1000W.

Unless you're going to run the latest games in ultra-high quality modes at high resolutions, the SLI (or CrossFire) is overkill. You've specced two graphics cards from the previous generation (68xx) of ATI cards, too - consider a single 69xx generation card, you'll get better results and less heat and noise. It's often said that FSX doesn't work with SLI - this isn't true, SLI is implemented at the driver level; but FSX doesn't really benefit from SLI, because it doesn't know how to use the driver options properly.

I have a Radeon HD 6970 in my FSX box - it's expensive at £250 or thereabouts, but the 6950 is also a good card and a fair bit cheaper. To be honest, though, if I were buying right now I'd go nVidia again - look at the GeForce 5 series.

Other than that, it's a great spec - you can't do better than the i7 2600K at the moment without spending silly money (the i7 3960X will outperform it stock, take a similar overclock, and beat it at that overclock level, but only by around 20%, while costing £500 more. Who pays nearly £800 for a CPU these days?).

Do tell us what you picked and how well it all works...

NH

[notgotaclue]

Hi,
Thanks for the replies, a lot to mull over for my non-techie mind.
This rig is purely for FSX, nothing else will be loaded onto it (apart from the usual add ons) and it will not be used for anything else.
So basically I am on the right track, with a few tweaks.
If I am honest I looked purely at the - more money = better hardware, rather than any concious thought as to the pros and cons.
I have a lot to research and will no doubt be back with more questions.
Allan

[notgotaclue]

I have tinkered with the specs a bit and listened to what I have been advised - this is what I have come up with -

Alioramus 2500K OC @ 4.3Ghz

CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K @ 4.3Ghz
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 Water Cooler
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P
Memory: 8.0GB Corsair 1600mhz Vengeance (2x 4GB)
Hard Drives: Corsair 120GB Force3 SSD S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
2nd hard drive: 500GB S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB
Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio
Internet: Wireless 802.11N 300Mbps MIMO PCI card
Case: Zalman Z9 Plus
PSU: 850W Corsair TX
Warranty: 3 Year Bronze Warranty
Total: £1,121.69

What do you think.
Allan

[notgotaclue]

Another quick question.
Say I do go for the 2 graphics cards, would I be able to use one card for FSX (using 3 monitors) and another card for other things such as Prosim737 (using more monitors)?
Told you I haven't got a clue.
Allan

[Sean Nixon]

Yes you would, but be conscious of the amount of programs you are asking that single PC to do. Your FSX performance will be degraded the more you ask the PC to do.

[Neil Hewitt]

Actually, probably not. FSX runs in DirectX mode and IIRC it sets all displays into that mode - which is why you don't still see the desktop on your other screens if you're in full-screen mode, and why you can move views and gauges onto other screens. So no other application is going to get a look-in in terms of displaying anything, and I think that includes on a 2nd video card.

Problem is, by the time your PC is done rendering the 3 views you'll need for your three screens off the main GPU, it'll be basically out of CPU time to do anything else. Having 3 views will itself slow things down quite a bit. Many people use multiple PCs with each view being rendered by one.

Your new spec, BTW, is looking pretty good. But be realistic about what you'll get for the money. You'll get a very hardcore rig that's about as fast as it gets these days, but that's only just fast enough to give you good FSX performance with sliders maxed and add-ons loaded with a single forward view. You could double your PCs FLOPS (well, technically you couldn't because the hardware doesn't exist, but you know what I mean) and still not have enough to satisfy FSX's requirements under absolutely all conditions. All we can do is keep feeding it hardware and hope it'll give us what we want :-)

[notgotaclue]

Thanks for the answers,
At the moment I have 3 monitors -Eyefinity- running FSX quite happily (granted I had to lower some settings and tweak beyond belief), along with FDC Live Cockpit, ActiveSky. This is on a computer that is several years old - 2.8Ghz & Ati Radeon 5700.
I am running Prosim737 on a 2nd computer along with FlightSim Commander and Radar Contact.
So I dont see how a brand spanking new computer with all the bells and whistles would struggle running these same programmes + Prosim737 for the instruments?
I dont run FSX in full screen mode if that makes any difference.
I hate computers - give me a circular saw and angle grinder any day.
Allan.
P.S. It is not a major issues, as I will just keep Prosim on the second PC, I just wondered if it is actually possible.

[notgotaclue]

All we can do is keep feeding it hardware and hope it'll give us what we want :-)

Tell me about it... ;)

It is shocking that a piece of software 6 years old is still not capable of running to its full potential on today's computers.
Allan.

P.S. I think it will be a damn good rig for £1100 and will more than meet my needs..

[Neil Hewitt]

Thanks for the answers,
At the moment I have 3 monitors -Eyefinity- running FSX quite happily (granted I had to lower some settings and tweak beyond belief), along with FDC Live Cockpit, ActiveSky. This is on a computer that is several years old - 2.8Ghz & Ati Radeon 5700.
I am running Prosim737 on a 2nd computer along with FlightSim Commander and Radar Contact.
So I dont see how a brand spanking new computer with all the bells and whistles would struggle running these same programmes + Prosim737 for the instruments?
I dont run FSX in full screen mode if that makes any difference.
I hate computers - give me a circular saw and angle grinder any day.
Allan.
P.S. It is not a major issues, as I will just keep Prosim on the second PC, I just wondered if it is actually possible.

If it doesn't need to use the display, then yes it would run - stuff that sits and talks to the network would be OK. But as ProSim needs to display panels, I don't think it would. But I could be wrong :-)

When you say running FSX 'quite happily', I'd be interested to know what you mean in terms of performance - only because everyone's view is different. For me, much less than 30fps looks jerky and unpleasant. I've run FSX, CFG tweaked, on a Core i7 @ 2.93GHz - which is of course only about 60% of the CPU power of the sort of rig we're talking about here - with Aerosoft's London VFR and London City installed, no other 3rd party stuff, no REX etc, and watched the frame rate drop down to 5fps at 1920x1200 with clear skies. Now there could well have been specific problems with that set-up, but the point I'm making is that FSX can demand more CPU than it's actually possible to give it no matter how much you spend.

My own thinking would be to have a computer solely for running FSX and any other software which *must* run on the FSX computer. I'd build a custom version of the OS, removing all services and components that are unneeded, and really trim the running set. I'd dedicate every available CPU cycle to FSX. Any add-ons that will run over a network via WideFS would be on another PC, perhaps more. That's basically what I'm about to do over the next few months, actually.

I personally love computers - they're my hobby and my day job - but I totally agree, it's just way too much of a hassle trying to build a system that runs FSX well. It shouldn't have to be a dark art. But then if it wasn't, we wouldn't all need to hang out here, would we? :-)

[notgotaclue]

Hi,
When I say "quite happily", I get mid 20's most of the time, this will drop to high teens using Uk2000 and aerosoft airports and single digits on major airports such as heathrow.
This is with sliders set at about a third.
I have been quite happy running FSX on this system but now I am taking my build serious I want to get a smoother performance and be able to move the sliders as near to the right as possible.
I shall probably purchase this rig after a few more days of research - unless you can advise me on any thing I have missed.

I have read that ATI cards do not render clouds very well, and to go with Nvidia, but I chose ATI so I can use Eyefinity and use three screens for my forward view. Does Nvidia support triple monitor setup similar to Eyefinity As I dont want to go the TH2GO route as I have heard bad things about maximum resolutions.
I am also planning on using three 50" LCD tv,s for the views.
Dont want much do I:p
Allan

[jonesthesoftware]

Hi Allan
If you are going to use 3 LCD tv's then these will limit your max resolution to 1920x1080 per TV as this is "full HD", TV's can't accept any higher resolution. A TV will never have as sharp an image as a PC monitor because of the circuitry involved. This HD resolution is what limits TH2GO which can handle greater resolutions if you have the right hardware.(make sure your graphics cards are compatible with TH2GO before you buy them check the website comparison table). Similarly using 3 separate TV's with each connected to a single graphics card output is system killer. FSX/ windows does not like multiple windows on multiple graphics card outputs, whereas multiple undocked windows going to 1 graphics card output is OK. Check around the forums and I believe you'll find the best graphics solution regardless of hardware is the TH2GO using 1 graphics card output for the best possible external view with smoothest/best frame rates.
I use 2 LG 42" HD tv's for my 767 outside view via TH2GO (set at 3840X1080) and whilst the view is good it is nowhere near as sharp as on a PC monitor
kind regards
geoff
PS where are you in Wales, I'm down in Aberdare

[notgotaclue]

Hi,
I live in Newport.
I am getting a headache trying to pin down my choice;)
Would using the th2go with 3 tvs be doable - or would i be better off using 3 projectors?
Dont really want to use 2 screens as the runway is obscured on landing.
I am going round in circles, but it is such a large amount i want to get it right.
Allan

[jonesthesoftware]

Hi Allan
Yes TH2GO will drive 3 TV's or 3 projectors. Tv's will be brighter images than projectors but 3 projectors has the possibility of having a curved "wrap around" screen to give the best immersive display by having the scenery going past the side windows in correct synchronisation with the front windows.
Although I currently have 2 TVs I am planning to switch to projectors to have the 180-220 degree display. Although the images are not as bright as TV's I believe the more realistic display with the side windows will give a more satisfying experience. Also you won't see the TV frames when you angle your head too high or too low as the projected image can fill the walls aroung you. Once I get my shell around my cockpit and cut out external light I think the pprojectors will be excellent. The projectors are more expensive than the TV's especially as large screen HD TV's are falling in price at the moment and of course there's a lot of heat generated by 3 projectors to consider, as well as a room with sufficient area for your projector screens and how to build a curved screen. A lot to consider! See picture of what 2 TV's looks like
I'm only 30 miles from you if you want to visit, I've got a large woodworking workshop and better still a CNC machine that does 900x700x150mm if you need any work done.
kind regards
geoff

6128

[notgotaclue]

Hi Geoff,
I think I am over analysing things, I tend to do that....;)
I have been 6 months deciding on my visual and system and it has now come to crunch time as my pit is almost complete.
I dont think I have the space for a wrap around visuals - about 9 foot wide, by 15 foot long, by 7 foot high -hence the 3 tv's.
I am now maybe buying the hardware setup I posted earlier, along with a TH2GO and 3 50" Tv's. Although that will no doubt change in an hours time. :p
I want to get it right as I have spent almost a year building my pit and dont want to let it down with 2nd class visuals, but I am totally out of my knowledge comfort zone when it comes to 'puters.
Allan
P.S. Forgot to thank you for your kind offer, I now have all the panels and work complete on the interior but thanks anyway.

[Neil Hewitt]

Just to come back to the earlier point about nVidia - no, they don't offer an EyeFinity equivalent on a single GPU. They have something called nVidia Surround which supports many displays but you need two cards in SLI as a minimum as no nVidia card can drive more than two monitors. Though they do still have a couple of GX2 cards which are basically two graphics cards in SLI packaged into a single container that takes only one slot, and those can have up to four outputs. They tend to be expensive, though. AMD is definitely the better choice for self-contained cards.

EyeFinity does, BTW, support span mode - making all three displays appear to be a single surface to Windows. This avoids the multi-monitor problem with DirectX. AFAIK that would give you all the benefits of TH2GO without the need for the extra hardware.

Depending on how complex you want to get you could look at a rear-projected system using mirrors to fold the beams so you can get the throw length even in a small space. It's not un-complicated, though :-)

[jonesthesoftware]

Hi Allan
once you buy the TH2GO you can always change to projectors in the future, hopefully they'll get cheaper. Make sure you buy the DIGITAL version of the TH2Go go here....

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/th2go/?productTabs=1#specs

as it has greater resolution, also make sure your graphics card(s) are compatible before you buy I made this mistake and ended up buying another graphics card go here....

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/support/compatibility/gxm/

regards
geoff

[notgotaclue]

Depending on how complex you want to get you could look at a rear-projected system using mirrors to fold the beams so you can get the throw length even in a small space. It's not un-complicated, though :-)

Me and complicated do not get on very well. :D
Allan.

[notgotaclue]

Geoff,
Are there any advantages to using a TH2GO rather than Eyefinity? If I am buying a new rig I may as well go down the Eyefinity route, whatdayareckon?
Will eyefinity be able to handle 3 large screen tvs' or would that be the advantage of TH2GO?
Allan.
PS. I seem to be asking a load of dumb questions, but when the total outlay is close to 3 grand then I think a few dumb questions need to be asked....

[Neil Hewitt]

Eyefinity will handle 3 LCD TVs at Full HD fine, provided you have enough RAM on the card (1GB will do). In theory it can handle a total surface resolution of 7680x3200.

[notgotaclue]

Eyefinity will handle 3 LCD TVs at Full HD fine, provided you have enough RAM on the card (1GB will do). In theory it can handle a total surface resolution of 7680x3200.
Thanks.
I think I have made my decision - I will use this system and run 3 LCD tv's using Eyefinity.

Alioramus 2500K OC @ 4.3Ghz

CPU:Intel Core i5 2500K @ 4.3Ghz
CPU Cooler:Corsair H60 Water Cooler
Operating System: Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard:Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3P
Memory: 8.0GBCorsair 1600mhz Vengeance (2x 4GB)
Hard Drives:Corsair 120GB Force3 SSD S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
2nd hard drive:500GB S-ATAII 3.0Gb/s
Optical Drive: 22x DVD±RW DL S-ATA
Graphics card:ATI Radeon HD 6970 2GB
Sound card: Onboard 7.1 Audio
Internet:Wireless 802.11N 300Mbps MIMO PCI card
Case:Zalman Z9 Plus
PSU:850W Corsair TX
Total: £1,121.69

Please tell me if there is anything else I am missing.
Allan.

[jonesthesoftware]

Hi Allan
just to add to the confusion, how will you connect 3 tv's to one graphics card?? TV's have VGA or HDI input socket but the Radeon 6970 has different outputs this is from their website.

Use of 3 or more displays with AMD Eyefinity technology requires a DisplayPort-capable panel or an AMD Eyefinity validated dongle. See http://www.amd.com/EyefinityDongles for a list of validated DisplayPort dongles.

You may need powered dispklay port adaptors to convert from display port to VGA or HDMI
Is this PC only for the outside view?
regards
geoff

[Neil Hewitt]

jonesthesoftware makes a good point - you will indeed need a DisplayPort adapter to be able to do three displays. ISTR my 6970 (which is not Sapphire, it's PowerColor) came with one, but I could be wrong. My card has two mini-DisplayPort ports, one HDMI, and one DVI. So the third display has to be attached via DisplayPort.

Any TV you can buy now will have HDMI ports. No point in even considering connecting via VGA even if it had the port, which it won't - VGA is analog and can't support 1920x1080 AKA FullHD anyway. Assuming you won't be pushing sound out via the TVs, then get one DVI -> HDMI cable, two HDMI -> HDMI cables, and one mini-DisplayPort (or ordinary DisplayPort, depending on the specifics of your card) -> HDMI passive adapter. That'll let you connect the three TVs using HDMI.

Hope that makes sense - it's a bit complicated, I grant you, and I'd forgotten to even mention it, but it's not complex enough or expensive enough to justify going for TH2GO, at least IMHO.

Here's a link to one of the certified adapters on amazon.co.uk at £28:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Accell-B086B-002B-UltraAV-Display-Adapter/dp/B0041OEQA6

And you can get dirt cheap but perfectly good HDMI cables via AmazonBasics:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-High-Speed-HDMI-Cable-Ethernet/dp/B003L1ZYYM
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-HDMI-Adapter-Cable-Feet/dp/B001TH7T2U

[jonesthesoftware]

Hi Neil
When I said VGA port on the TV you're right it's not actually VGA spec but it is a PC input using what are commonly called vga cables. My setup actually uses these "VGA" ports on my LG HD TVs as my graphics cards only have the digital out ports (DVI?) and not the HD so I had no choice. Incidentally I have tried my TV's on a HD port from a graphics card and I was a bit dissapopinted as I could see no difference in the sharpness of the image. I expected the HD to HD connection to have been better. Maybe TV manufacturers don't spend much on the PC input circuitry to their TV's as they could because generally it's not used for that purpose.
regards
geoff

[notgotaclue]

Hope that makes sense - it's a bit complicated, I grant you, and I'd forgotten to even mention it, but it's not complex enough or expensive enough to justify going for TH2GO, at least IMHO.



It does indeed make sense.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to guide me through this absolute nightmare... ;)
------ now where did I put that credit card.
Allan.

[Neil Hewitt]

Hi Neil
When I said VGA port on the TV you're right it's not actually VGA spec but it is a PC input using what are commonly called vga cables. My setup actually uses these "VGA" ports on my LG HD TVs as my graphics cards only have the digital out ports (DVI?) and not the HD so I had no choice. Incidentally I have tried my TV's on a HD port from a graphics card and I was a bit dissapopinted as I could see no difference in the sharpness of the image. I expected the HD to HD connection to have been better. Maybe TV manufacturers don't spend much on the PC input circuitry to their TV's as they could because generally it's not used for that purpose.
regards
geoff

Well, VGA is always a 9-pin D plug, whereas DVI is a two-part plug with lots more pins. Both are PC connections, but one is analog and one digital. The video portion of HDMI, BTW, is electrically identical to DVI, which is why you can have a cable with DVI on one end and HDMI on the other, no adapter or converter required. VGA has a max res of 1280x960 (I think) and can't do HD resolutions, and of course since the connection is analog the picture quality will suck.

That said, depending on your TV, a digital connection doesn't guarantee a sharp picture. Many TVs apply overscan to all signals including HDMI so while the display may have 1920x1080 and your input signal is also 1920x1080, the picture is revamped resulting in loss of sharpness. You need to turn off any overscan, or enable so-called 'dot-by-dot' mode, to get a pixel-perfect picture.

[JWS]

Neil,

At the moment using FS9, and will do so until my cockpit is finished I guess. Using a Digital TH2GO with 3 20" screens. Should I ever change to FSX, what kind of card should I look for at least, to run FSX with the TH2GO smoothly? I know that TH2GO affects fps.

Thanks,

JWS

[Neil Hewitt]

I'm no expert on the TH2GO and I wouldn't wish to portray myself as such. I'd imagine any fame rate impact of the unit would be static - ie the same whatever card you plug it into.

My own belief is that even a relatively old card should give you decent performance for FSX on its own. However, you shouldn't discount the impact of drivers, either, and only the more recent cards have great driver support. So my recommendation would be for something mid-range in the current generation. You need a card that can support the overall resolution of the three displays, so 1GB is a must.

A Radeon HD 68xx card, or even a 67xx, would probably do. In NVidia land, maybe a GTX 550 TI. Or a cheaper 560.

As always, YMMV...

[BeaconOne]

Hi,

As neilh says 1GB is a must. I've been running FSX/TH2GO with both GTX460 and GTX570 with no difference in performance. However, I recommend experimenting with the double-/triplebuffering settings of the graphic card when using TH2GO.

Note also that TH2GO does not support HDCP! This may become an issue with some displays, especially projectors.


Regards,
-Henri

[JWS]

Neil, Henri,

thank you for your replies.

Henri, you said: "However, I recommend experimenting with the double-/triplebuffering settings of the graphic card when using TH2GO."

Can you elaborate on this? Can this be done with every NVidia card (using a GTS 8800 right now for my FS9); what to look for exactly with these settings?

Best regards,

JWS

[BeaconOne]

Hi,

Triplebuffering can help in some cases when using TH2GO and you experience tearing. The result is very much dependent on framerates you are getting and resolution used. If your monitor refresh rate and your systems ability to produce frames gets badly out of sync you can experience tearing. The worst case is when your system is able to produce a frame but TH2GO does not draw it (or draws it only partially) due to the whole thing being out of sync. By buffering frames you might get less tearing and more smoothness.

People often get confused with frame rates and monitor refresh rates. We can put it this way: Most monitors today have a refresh rate of 60Hz, that is 60 pictures per second on your LCD-screen. If you get a frame rate of lets say 65 fps in your sim (or game) what happens to the 5 fps?

Triplebuffering can be turned on in nVidia control panel or nVidia Inspector. I use nVidia Inspector (recommended).


Regards,
-Henri

[Pontius Pilot]

Brilliant thread.

Looking to build a new PC soon to run TH2G with 3 monitors and need another output for a VRInsight Instrument monitor. Based on what I've read on this thread I've come up with:

CPU Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked (4 x 3.3GHz) 6MB (to be overclocked)
CPU Heatsink Corsair Hydro Series H80 (Advanced Liquid Cooling)
Memory Corsair 16GB PC3-12800 1600 MHz (4x4GB) - Lifetime Warranty (DDR3)
Graphics Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 - 3 GB - (PALIT) (PCI-E)
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 (Intel Z68 )
Sound Card Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity 7.1 Hi-Def (PCI-E)
Networking Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
Power Supply Corsair 800W Gaming PSU - Low Noise
Hard Drive #1 240GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD SATA-III, Read 525MB/s, Write 500MB/s - Silent
Optical Drive #1 Samsung 22x DVD Re-Writer/Reader /- RW- Black - (SATA)
Operating System #1 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included)

Any comments/suggestions?

[Peter Dowson]

Sound Card Asus Xonar D2X Ultra Fidelity 7.1 Hi-Def (PCI-E)
...
Any comments/suggestions?

Looks good. Similar to mine except mine is P67 mobo based (bought it all before the new Z68s came out). But unless you want to use the PC for hifi music too I'd ditch the sound card -- on-board mobo sound is easily good enough for FS and suffers less problems, less stuttering etc.

My 2500K is overclocked to 4.8GHz using a Corsair liquid cooler, with no problems at all.

Regards
Pete

[Pontius Pilot]

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of having surround sound or does fsx not support it? Definitely pointless if it doesnt. My other worry is if the gtx 580 will be able to handle the VRInsight LCD along with the three monitors through the TH2G or whether it would pay to have a second not so powerful gfx card for that?

[Peter Dowson]

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking of having surround sound or does fsx not support it?

I've got surround sound (5.1 in fact) using the motherboard. The sound chips they use are generally very capable these days. Check the Z68 board though -- as I say, mine is a P67.


My other worry is if the gtx 580 will be able to handle the VRInsight LCD along with the three monitors through the TH2G or whether it would pay to have a second not so powerful gfx card for that?

To the video card the TH2G connection looks just like one monitor, so I'm certain you can connect both and have them both working. I'd be more concerned about the frame rate penalty you pay for having an FSX undocked window for display on the VRi device. Though, maybe, if it is taking all of the 2D panel, and you only have the outside world on the TH2G, it wouldn't be significant because of what you save over 3D cockpit graphics overlaying the scenery.

I haven't used a TH2G with FSX at all, though I used to with FS9. My TH2G is currently connected to a separate system which is configured for F1 Racing only. But I've not even switched that one on for a long time, being too busy with FSX etc.

Regards
Pete