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DVA9080
Senior Captain, DC-6
OLP
E-MAIL

Joined on September 30 2010
B757 100 Club
Everett 250 Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary
Carolina Club
Online Seven Century Club
Eight Century Club
Events Century Club

Elizabethtown, KY

865 legs, 2,390.3 hours
778 legs, 2,126.8 hours online
821 legs, 2,255.0 hours ACARS
107 legs, 261.1 hours event
70 legs dispatched, 109.8 hours

Posted onPost created on February 05 2011 16:12 ET by Nathan Cox

Recently, I have been researching different computer setups and have done some customization on the HP website. My current computer has been having trouble running FS9 if you attempt to run any other program simultaniously with it. I would like to know would any of these setups run X-Plane 9 well? (I'm sure it would be about the same workload as FSX) Do any of y'all run system's similar to these that could tell me hoe the handle flight simulator? What I am most concerned with is the graphics cards, X-Plane is really heavy on graphics. (my current computer gets 4fps at times with the X-Plane demo)

Setup #1 HP 510t Series
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Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500 quad-core processor [3.3GHz, 6MB cache]

Memory: 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs]

Hard drive: 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard driv

Graphics card: 3GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 [DVI, HDMI, VGA, includes 350W power supply] edit

Sound Card: Beats Audio -- integrated studio quality sound

Total Cost: $1,169

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Setup #2 HP 500z Series
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Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edit

Processor: AMD Phenom(TM) X4 840T quad-core processor [2.9GHz, 2MB L2 + 6MB L3 shared, up to 4000MHz]

Memory: 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs]

Hard drive: 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 640GB edit

Graphics card: 1.5GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 [DVI, HDMI, VGA, includes 350W power supply]

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer

Total Cost: $1,019

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Setup #3 HP 560z Series
-------------------------------

Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edit

Processor: AMD Phenom(TM) II X6 1090T six-core processor [3.2GHz, 3MB L2 + 6MB L3 shared, up to 4000MHz] edit

Memory: 8GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs] from 6GB edit

Hard drive: 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 750GB

Graphics card: 3GB DDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 440 [DVI, HDMI, VGA, includes 350W power supply]

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer

Total Cost: $1,150

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Setup #4 HP 510t Series
------------------------------

Operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500 quad-core processor [3.3GHz, 6MB cache]

Memory: 6GB DDR3-1333MHz SDRAM [3 DIMMs] from 4GB

Hard drive: 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive from 640GB

Graphics card: 1GB DDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6850 [2 DVI, HDMI, 2 mDP, VGA adapter, includes 460W power supply]

Sound Card: Beats Audio -- integrated studio quality sound

Total Cost: $1,170

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I am trying to get the biggest bang for my buck.
All input will be welcome. I am VERY new to this so any tidbit of information is helpful. Also please do share any hints, tricks, or improvements that you think would further my FS experience, all help is appreciated.

Thank you!!

Nathan Cox (DVA9080)

DVA6863
Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on December 29 2008
50 State Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
Globetrotter
US Coastal Club
US Mountaineer Club
Million Mile Club
Everett 500 Club
Millennium Club

Nashua, NH

1,085 legs, 2,955.0 hours
76 legs, 215.8 hours online
1,062 legs, 2,896.3 hours ACARS
5 legs, 13.2 hours event

Posted onPost created on February 06 2011 19:44 ET by Dylan Dworsky

I would suggest building your own, if you have the knowledge of how to do so, and if you don't there are many who can help you here. FSX/9 is very heavy on the CPU, mainly the clock speed. The number of cores, from my experience, is not very important for the simulator itself, but helps with multi-tasking. Also, AMD cards don't usually play well with FS (there are exceptions, though). I would also recommend a SSD for your flight sim if possible.
Hope I was of some help...

Dylan Dworsky

Captain, MD-11

DVA9181
Captain, B757-200

Joined on November 07 2010

Bellevue, WA USA

81 legs, 386.0 hours
7 legs, 15.3 hours online
81 legs, 386.0 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on February 07 2011 00:29 ET by Ivaylo Ivanov

I second Dylan. Look around the web and read about building your own PC. It's a very rewarding experience and, if you shop around, it will allow you to build the same computers you're looking to get for quite a bit less. Moreover, like Dylan said, I'd also go with Intel.

Ivaylo Ivanov

Captain, B757-200

Posted onPost created on February 07 2011 06:59 ET by Nathan Cox

Thanks for the input. I'll start reading up on the subject. smile

DVA4595
Senior Captain, A320
OLP

Joined on June 15 2007
B757 100 Club
Everett 500 Club
Tri-Jet Triumph
50 State Club
Millennium Club
Online Millennium Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary
Event Half Century Club

"How 'bout them Dawgs?"
Cumming, GA

1,370 legs, 1,903.7 hours
1,273 legs, 1,764.9 hours online
1,323 legs, 1,832.7 hours ACARS
52 legs, 95.6 hours event
3 legs dispatched, 10.8 hours

Posted onPost created on February 07 2011 07:57 ET by Mark Springsteen

I have had terrible luck with HP's. There customer support is not very good and they try to charge you everytime you call them for support. I would try a different route.

Mark Springsteen (DVA4595)

DVA6167
Senior Captain, B737-800

Joined on July 19 2008
Online Century Club
50 State Club
Everett 500 Club
Tin Dispatcher
Millennium Club
Two Million Mile Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary

Madison, WI USA

1,182 legs, 4,649.7 hours
163 legs, 522.6 hours online
1,169 legs, 4,579.1 hours ACARS
2 legs, 4.0 hours event
1,225 legs, 4,810.0 hours total
343 legs dispatched, 224.0 hours

Posted onPost created on February 07 2011 09:39 ET by Bryan Klawiter

I am dealing with a small power supply issue with my dell right now and you will have the same problem with all three of those configurations, a 350W power supply will probably not be enough if you try to upgrade at all. As a matter of fact, I think my dell might even have a little more than that.

Bryan Klawiter

Senior Captain, B737-800

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