Flight sim pc specs?

wassupdoc

wassupdoc

New member
I'm going to be building a PC for a friend soon, and he wants to be able to play flight simulator over three screens maxed out with several intense expansions on it. the thing is I have no idea about what is good for flight simulator >_< I know it can be really intense on memory with expansions, so lot's of it is needed, but that is the extent of my knowledge :)
so my questions:
Best cpu?
Best gpu?
Best Ram speed??
Anything else I need to know?

Thanks,
wassupdoc
 
The budgets kinda unlimited because he will be working towards it from his own business :P
(within reason obviously)
 
Can't see it needing anything more than a 3570k and a 4gb 670 really. Flight sims generally aren't that intensive are they? He can always invest in a second 670 if it's not enough down the line.

Ram wise - there is still no real advantage going higher than 1600MHz and I haven't seen any game use close to 8gbs so some standard 2x4gb sticks will be fine I'm sure.
 
Last edited:
Master&Puppet said:
Can't see it needing anything more than a 3570k and a 4gb 670 really. Flight sims generally aren't that intensive are they? He can always invest in a second 670 if it's not enough down the line.

Ram wise - there is still no real advantage going higher than 1600MHz and I haven't seen any game use close to 8gbs so some standard 2x4gb sticks will be fine I'm sure.
Click to expand...

That's what i thought for a general gaming pc, but having done a little research it seems they are different beast altogether, they take massive fps hits with more than one card and memory speed makes a huge difference :P I'm starting to get confused, they seem to defy logic lol
 
its a pretty intensive game really, and seen it is business related you might not want to take something "average"..
 
aswell what flight simulator does he have? im reading fsx is cpu intensive and doesnt support SLI very well..
 
Spend more money on a CPU than a graphics card, most flight sims (especially FSX) benefit more from processing power than graphics performance. Probably would want at least 8gb of ram as well
 
Yeh, Go with a 3570k, a big airflow case and 670 SLI 4gb. 8gb of RAM - 1600, maybe 1866 if the budgets unlimited. You wont need anymore.

If you'd fancy investing in watercooling, maybe go for that and ramp up some massive clocks across the cpu and gpus
 
well the latest version of flight simulator ( microsoft flight ) is just a way to make money, its not even a simulator anymore but just a game ( imo ). But the previous one ( fsx ) is a good simulator, so unless his business i letting people play a computer game i would guess hes going for fsx.. but i might be wrong

To the topic:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3580
 
Well according to this:

http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_093d.html

FSX is only coded for two threads so there's no point getting more than a 3570K but the recommended specs for x-plane are a lot higher:

http://www.x-plane.com/desktop/system-requirements/

http://developer.x-plane.com/2010/08/multicore-and-version-10/

Suggests that they still class 4 cores or more as "enthusiast" and if you take into account over-clocking I still really can't see it needing more than an i5 reading between the lines. But a 3770K to be sure since x-plane 10 can make use of upto 16 threads apparently.

Hang on, I'll tell you what-there is a demo on the website here:
http://www.x-plane.com/downloads/x-plane_10_demo/

Surely one of us can dl it and give it a go? I can do this tomorrow afternoon if no-one else has.

M&P
 
they made a service pack for fsx - can now use 32 threads i believe, atleast more then 4

and sorry but i cant test, i have a 955 :)
 
Master&Puppet said:
Well according to this:

http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_093d.html

FSX is only coded for two threads so there's no point getting more than a 3570K but the recommended specs for x-plane are a lot higher:

http://www.x-plane.com/desktop/system-requirements/

http://developer.x-plane.com/2010/08/multicore-and-version-10/

Suggests that they still class 4 cores or more as "enthusiast" and if you take into account over-clocking I still really can't see it needing more than an i5 reading between the lines. But a 3770K to be sure since x-plane 10 can make use of upto 16 threads apparently.

Hang on, I'll tell you what-there is a demo on the website here:
http://www.x-plane.com/downloads/x-plane_10_demo/

Surely one of us can dl it and give it a go? I can do this tomorrow afternoon if no-one else has.

M&P
Click to expand...

I dont mind doing it, but if I only do it on one screen will it matter?
 
Graphically, played absolutely fine on my single 670. No need at all to get more.

The loading screen, considering it was from an SSD did take a long time and did keep becoming unresponsive, so I'm not sure what that is...

This was after 'playing' about 10 mins - Surprised I lasted in the air that long tbh...



So did kind of use all 8 threads, but barely stressed any of them.

I'm no expert on flight sims at all (took me several minutes to take off, and even then I some how managed to go over the grass between runways, crash through a fence and finally take off from the road behind it) but I'd guess a 3570k and single 670 is absolutely fine for running it.
 
Hehe, were you playing with a mouse? I think that makes it pretty hard!

Yea your threads weren't stressed at all and given that HTs are worth 10-30% of a true core I think a 3570k with a 4gb 670 will be fine. When I was looking around the forums earlier people were saying something along the lines of a decent modern cpu with medium quality GPU so that fits in.

I'll have a go on my 3570k tomorrow just to make sure though because I like doing these tests :D
 
yeh i was, plus I couldnt get the demo out of windowed mode and the mouse kept clicking off so i spent ages moving the mouse thinking - why isnt anything happening?

I'm glad I dont 'play' flight simulators - despite wanting to join the RAF for many years - still possibly an option.......

.....and also being on one of the most expensive flight simulators in the country at leeds univerity... :)
 
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