Upgrade to i7-975/GTX 295 Options

[tstiegler]

Hi,
may I ask if you would consider it worth to upgrade my system (Intel Q9650-4x3.0GHz, NVIDIA 8800 Ultra, 4 GB DDR-3-1066) to an i7-975 and an NVIDIA GTX 295? According to common benchmarks I should expect a "general" increase in performance of 150-200%. But what does it mean in FPS in FSX? Are there special recommendations regarding motherboard and RAM? What's the best HDD currently on the market? Is it better to use Vista or Windows 7? I tried Vista 64 2 years ago but gave up as I couldn't see any real performance improvement but a lot of incompatibilities of various addons.

Many thanks in advance, Thomas

[TechguyMaxC]

150-200% increase in performance? No. Not in FSX anyway. Perhaps a tenth that.

[tstiegler]

150-200% increase in performance? No. Not in FSX anyway. Perhaps a tenth that.

Hm, I was afraid to get such an answer.

If I go to tomshardware.com and take the benchmark named "Sum of FPS Benchmarks 1920x1200 with anti aliasing, 4AA (High Quality) I get 621 frames for the GTX295 and 253 for the 8800 Ultra. Most other benchmarks are in the same ratio although a few doesn't show that much of a difference. This is somehow as to be expected as the GTX295 has two GPU's.

Regarding the CPU I didn't find a direct comparison between Q9650 and i7-975 so I took the QX6850 instead, that to my knowledge has a better performance than the Q9650. The average of all benchmarks shows an increas of 39% (saying if QX6850 has 100% then Q9650 has 139%).

I know that using this figures to estimate what to expect in FSX is comparing apples with oranges, but what if I don't have anything else. But, anyhow, if we take money aside for a moment what system would you consider as the best for FSX?

Thanks, Thomas

[TechguyMaxC]

FSX just doesn't work like other games. You need sheer CPU clock speed + an efficient architecture to run FSX well.

[Sharrow]

Hi Thomas

If I were you I would not spend a massive wad of cash right now. Sit tight until the 6 core i9 CPU's are out early next year together with the DX11 graphics cards from Nvidia and then go ahead and get yourself a new rig based on a Windows 7 64bit system.

For the record a GTX295 is a dual GPU graphics card - FSX does NOT support dual gpu's and you will experience sub par performance. For FSX (and FS9) stick with the fastest single Nvidia GPU card you can get (right now that would mean a GTX275 or GTX285).

Best HDD for FSX would be Western Digital's Velociraptor 10 000rpm. Having said that SSD are quickly becoming more and more affordable so for an OS drive I would for sure recommend an SSD. The new Samsung Spinpoint F3 HDD's are great performers!

[AlphaInfinity]

Hi Thomas

If I were you I would not spend a massive wad of cash right now. Sit tight until the 6 core i9 CPU's are out early next year together with the DX11 graphics cards from Nvidia and then go ahead and get yourself a new rig based on a Windows 7 64bit system.

For the record a GTX295 is a dual GPU graphics card - FSX does NOT support dual gpu's and you will experience sub par performance. For FSX (and FS9) stick with the fastest single Nvidia GPU card you can get (right now that would mean a GTX275 or GTX285).

Best HDD for FSX would be Western Digital's Velociraptor 10 000rpm. Having said that SSD are quickly becoming more and more affordable so for an OS drive I would for sure recommend an SSD. The new Samsung Spinpoint F3 HDD's are great performers!

Why would you suggest a SSD for an operating system drive when test after test has shown that write operations decrease the life of the SSD and we know that the majority of writes occur on the OS drive?

[tstiegler]

Thanks for your opinions. From what I've read I will try to overclock my existing Q9650 as far as possible. I have a water cooling system, so there should be some room for it. And maybe I go for a GTX285. For the rest I will wait what the next year will bring.

Thomas

[Sharrow]

Why would you suggest a SSD for an operating system drive when test after test has shown that write operations decrease the life of the SSD and we know that the majority of writes occur on the OS drive?

I guess it depends on which SSD you are talking about. The 2nd gen SSD's from Intel and OCZ and others are displaying none of the degredation over time issues you mention. Windows7 and it's TRIM command is on the way and there will be major firmware updates available shortly for most SSD's which will make these problems largely a thing of the past.

My advice is based on having read a large number of reviews and technical analyses of SSD's on respected tech websites. So I stand by my advice.

[abulaafia]

I have done almost exactly that, that is, tunred my 9650 into a media PC, and bought an i975 with a GTX285 for FSX. YOu dont need the 295 IIRK, as FSX doesn't take advantage of it. I see about 30% better frames with the 975 at stock (3.45) than with the 9650 which I ran at 3.6. I usually fly GA in the country and it never dips below the 40 fps I have it set to. It does with heavy airport add ons, but stays comfortably in the 20ies. I find it ideal and worth the upgrade, as the 9650 did sweat a bit at the heavy airports.
It was also nice not to have to bother with O/C anymore. I do use quite a bit of other software, no problems anywhere. When I fly heavies (seldom) from big airports, I simply switch the multiplier to 30 and have 4 GHz. (not in hot weather though :).


Stay away from SSD until the SLC technology offers 256 and more MB at reasonable prices. The current MLC drives deteriorate too fast. Give it a year I'd say.

[TechguyMaxC]

All things mechanical (and even electrical) have a finite life. Hard drives all die eventually if used long enough. SSD or magnetic, it's gonna go out some time.

Unless you can demonstrate that SSDs die much sooner than magnetic drives on average, I don't believe there's anything to worry about here.