let me know what you think about this

www.ibuypower.com/Stor...px?mid=135

the options i thinking about adding changing are:
-upgrade to 930 chip
-upgrade to dominator ram
-beefier PSU
-300 gb velociraptor hd
-floppy drive ?
-windows 7 pro (will add this regardless)
-no keyboard or mouse - i wanna get the logitech backlit keyboard
-special packaging / high perf thermal compound / pro wiring for cables ?

This PC is just barely in my price range. What things would be worth upgrading? Please give me your feedback!

What are you doing with the machine other then EQ?

Take a look at the i5 Chips. i'm hearing a lot of good reviews and they're cheaper then the i7's.
I wouldn't worry too much about the RAM, others might have other opinions but typically you won't notice the difference with what you have spec'd to what you're looking at going to.

The velociraptor's are very very nice but again its a matter of prefference, if you're going to be transfering a lot from drive to drive then sure. If you're running it as a single drive then theres no point.

Thermal cooling.. ifyou're going to be overclocking or you're in a room that gets very warm then go for it. Otherwise don't waste the money.

Dollin wrote:

What are you doing with the machine other then EQ?

Other than play EQ2, my real gaming passion is for flight simulators. Currently, it is Flight Simulator X (FSX). I'm basically trying to build a rig that will optimize that game, and that game alone.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm sick and tired of running EQ2 in very high performance mode, and would expect a delightful quality increase with a new rig. Based on what the computer wizards here have said, I'm running the most ancient dual core AMD there is, and it (my cpu) is my bottleneck.

Also, I would immediately go out and purchase Battlefield 2 - Bad Company, as well as Aliens Vs. Predator.

But, back to FSX. As far as I can tell, the game can take as much cpu and ram as you can throw at it, but is limited in the graphics card department. As in, <= ATI 4650 and no SLI. This is thanks to Microsoft shutting down the ACES Flight Simulator studio and ending the 20+ year Microsoft Flight Simulator franchise completely a year or two ago.

Here is an excerpt from an article written on FSX PC optimization:

http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=9064 wrote:

Why do get 50 fps and you get single digit fps? In the last few weeks there has been one question that I heard most of all as I was attending the Aerosoft stand at three flightsim events. “What is the hardware this is running on?” I understand the question as I always leave the framerate indication on screen and almost never show anything below 40 fps in FSX. I was asked a few times if I could discuss this a bit more. Now I have done so and even told the few persons who did not believe me to come and see. If I could not replicate the screen-shots on this forum I would pay for lunch, if I could the person who challenged me would pay. Last weekend at the show in Paris I had duck on Saturday and a fancy omelet on Sunday. And I did not pay. So what’s the deal? Do I have any tricks, some super-duper hardware? No. But I do know FSX rather well as it is my work. And I do know a bit about hardware and operating systems as they are my work tools. So as FSX runs for an average of 50 hours a week you learn a lot. Let’s first talk hardware. Here is what I am running: • Asus Motherboard, no idea what one, as cheap as I could find (€180) • Core i7, cheapest there is (€230) • 3 GB of memory, again as cheap as I could find it (€80) • ATI Radeon 4650 1GB (€50) • WD VelociRaptor disk (€140) • Sound/network onboard (€0) Add a case with 650 watt power supply and you get it for under €800 (in the US this would be around $750). This is written on December 10, 2009 and it will drop about 2% in price every month after that. A comment on the graphics card. I prefer the 4650 for FSX as it is the fastest card I can find for it. But as it works bad on the other products we handle (Rise of Flight, City Bus Simulator etc) I also got a more expensive card (Radeon 4870) that I can insert. Shitty but that’s life. Want a reason why FSX gets slower with more expensive cards? I can just guess but it cannot be a coincidence that the 4650 was about the fastest card around when FSX was created. Some 3d guy explained to me that when the GPU gets more complex there is more (not less) information to be send. If there is a timing problem in FSX the time window to send data might just not be large enough. A comment on the hard disk. Yes it is expensive and very fast. I like my storage fast. It’s also pretty small with only 150 GB. But that’s enough for me as all documents and files are on a server I got running here. Makes sense to keep your collection of vintage nudies from the machine I type the manuals on right? So it’s a solid machine but far from anything special. It’s not over-clocked in any way. But I do am careful with what I install. No crapware or silly Adobe updaters running in the background. I run it with Vista 32 bit now, updating to Windows 7 (also 32 bits) this week. FSX is installed with Acceleration. All our own addons are installed, not a lot more. The whole installation is not tweaked in any way. All 100% standard. I know a lot of people feel that tweaks to the CFG help, but to be honest I have never seen anything impressive. I prefer to run DX10 mode but on some products it simply does not work as it has some limitations, for example the fact it will not handle high detail textures. So we have to conclude that I don’t get my good FPS from the superior hardware. It has to be from the way I use the sim and how got my settings. So let’s talk settings. I suggest we run over them quickly so we know what’s what.

Ya.. CPU looks like the primary thing from all of that. I know EQ is primarilly based off of CPU as of right now. It seems that they're trying to migrate some of it to the GPU but whenever i try it it seems worse.

FS's seem to take any resource they can possibly get so ya you'll probably want to go up on everything you can possibly afford. Not that i'm an expert in that dept cause i havn't used a FS in years and i tend to crash a lot when i try

About that logitech illuminated keyboard - I just bought it yesterday from Best Buy. It's normally $80 but is currently on sale at Best Buy for $60.

www.bestbuy.com/site/L...Id=8986662

I also found it on Amazon for $60.

www.amazon.com/Logitec...230&sr=8-1

The keyboard is still at $80 on newegg.

But I picked mine up yesterday from best buy, no shipping. And, I happened to have $60 in gift cards, so it ended up costing me 5 bucks.

Let me tell you, this thing is pimp. Razor thin, beautiful white light keys - as opposed to those annoying blue light keyboards. This thing is gonna be so great for playing in the dark. I know we all like playing in the dark ... come on. And when I'm flying my 747 across the atlantic at night with the minimal instrument lighting in the cockpit, this keyboard will blend right in!

Here is the ibuypower page:
www.ibuypower.com/Stor...;c=2068785

Here is my current set up with the changes:

Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7 930 Processor (4x 2.8GHz/8MB L3 Cache) ) - $5 more expensive than 920
Processor Cooling ( [Free Upgrade] Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ 120mm Radiator [SOCKET-1366] )
Motherboard ( ASUS P6T SE -- Intel X58 Chipset CrossFire Supported w/8-ch HD Audio, Triple-Channel DDR3, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, 3 PCI-E MB )
Memory ( 6 GB [2 GB X3] DDR3-1600 Triple Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )
Video Card ( ATI Radeon HD 4650 – 1GB - Single Card ) , Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by ATI or NVIDIA )
Power Supply ( 750 Watt -- Corsair CMPSU-750TX Power Supply - SLI Ready )
Primary Hard Drive ( 750 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 3.0Gb/s - Single Drive ) ($10 rebate)
Optical Drive ( 22X Sony Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )
Case ( NZXT Tempest EVO Gaming Tower Case - Black )
Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Professional) - 64-Bit ) [+ $135]

Extras:
Case Lighting ( Cold Cathode Neon Light - Blue ) [+ $10]
Motherboard Add-on ( ASUS U3S6 True USB 3.0 & SATA 3.0 PCI-E x4 Expansion card ) [+ $29 - $30 rebate]
Flash Media Reader/Writer ( 12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer - Black ) [+ $5]
Mouse ( iBUYPOWER Internet Mouse - Black ) [+ $4]
Speaker System ( iBUYPOWER 2.1 Channel Stereo Super Bass Subwoofer Speaker System ) [+ $4]
Additional Software ( Microsoft Office 2007 Home and Student Software ) [+ $149 - $50 rebate, and free upgrade to Office 2010]
Advanced Build Options ( Professional wiring for all cables inside the system tower - Achieve exceptional airflow in your chassis ) [+ $19]


The total is: $1190 for the basic package, and $1394 with the extras added (not counting the rebates).

Should I pay an additional $20 - $50 for 10% or 20% overclocking?


Some possible upgrades to the above are:

- upgrade from Corsair XMS3 to Dominator ram: [+ $89]
www.newegg.com/Product...6820145224
- upgrade to ASUS P6TD Deluxe MB [+ 138]
www.newegg.com/Product...-_-Product
-OR-
- upgrade to ASUS P6X58 Premium MB [+ 153, on sale]
www.newegg.com/Product...-_-Product
- upgrade to DX 11 gfx card, or newer generation? [+ $50 to $100 ?] I dont know how much a newer card will actually slow down flight simulator ... is it worth it to get a newer one???


I made a wish-list on newegg for just the base components w/o any extras, case, cdrom, or OS and it's sitting at $915. It's called fsxbuild in the public wishlists, but hasn't shown up yet.

From what I can tell, ibuypower has the better deal. What do you guys think? Thanks for your time.

For overclocking you might see half a frame per second more if even that. So not worth it

Also I'd recommend dropping the nvidia card for an ATI 5750. $30 more but it's at least as good and at times better than the GF 250. Plus it supports dx11. (I've long been an nVidia fan but i have to say I'm loving my ATI 5 series card)

Anandtech Review (Start of benchmarks)

well after much thouht and a little more reseach ive decided to wait on buying anything until mid may or so. It appears the 4650 is not as critical as I previously thought. Hopefully by then whatever card I want will drop in price. Thanks very much for your suggestions pur and dol. If you or anyone else has any more comments please post.