Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Thoughts on a new build.

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support | Thoughts on a new build.

DVA8083
Captain, A320

Joined on November 13 2009
Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary

"Resident Idiot :)"
England United Kingdom

112 legs, 405.3 hours
58 legs, 126.6 hours online
108 legs, 388.4 hours ACARS
4 legs, 8.4 hours event
0 legs dispatched, 0.3 hours

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 06:41 ET by Rahul Parkar

Hey guys, I'm going to be buying most of the parts for my new computer here soon, wanted to get any thoughts on it, and anyway I could improve, (While not astronomically increasing cost).

ASRock Z77 Extreme 6, Intel Z77, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub/DP/DVI-D/HDMI, ATX Motherboard.
Intel Core i7 3770K,1155, Ivy Bridge, Quad Core, 3.5GHz, 5 GT/s DMI, 650MHz GPU, 8MB Smart Cache, 35x Ratio, 77W,Retail
2GB MSI GTX 660 OC, 28nm, PCIe 3.0 (x16), 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 1006MHz, Boost 1072MHz, Cores 960, DP/ DVI/HDMI +Free AC3 -- Overclocked GTX660.
Crucial (16GB) PC3-12800 DDR3
Crucial M4 128GB SSD (Windows + FlightSim + Addons)
Seagate Barracuda 3.5 inch 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB 6GB/S Internal SATA Drive
Undecided on an optical drive, but would just get any Blu-Ray/DVD/CD drive.

Also, if you have any good/bad reviews about any products here, or cheaper alternatives, please shoot them off.

Cheers!
Rahul

Rahul Parkar

Captain, A320

DVA3530
Captain, B767-300
OLP

Joined on September 09 2006

Bristol, CT

63 legs, 88.2 hours
55 legs, 75.1 hours online
61 legs, 83.9 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 09:11 ET by Dave Stankiewicz

I know you know your hardware just as well as anyone else, and this list shows it. Crucial RAM is some of the best you can get. even though it may not look as pretty as some others..lol.

I'm an AMD guy, myself, so i can't comment on the Mobo or CPU. The only suggestion i have, is to look at the Gigabyte GTX660 instead of the MSI. Both are OC'ed to the same clocks but the GB version has a better cooling system. If you've run an nvidia card before, you know how easily they heat up and every little bit of extra cooling helps.

Dave Stankiewicz

Captain, B767-300

DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on June 10 2001
Event Half Century Club
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
Everett 1500 Club
Bi-Millennium Club
Four Million Mile Club

"Col. Panic"
Marietta, GA

2,313 legs, 9,317.7 hours
240 legs, 553.9 hours online
1,971 legs, 8,110.8 hours ACARS
75 legs, 196.3 hours event
2,349 legs, 9,452.6 hours total
91 legs dispatched, 66.4 hours

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 10:57 ET by Luke Kolin

I'd strongly suggest a larger SSD; 128GB is on the small side. You probably want to get the 256GB M4, the Samsung 840 if you can get it, or a 64GB M4 as a boot drive. I have 64GB and 256GB M4s in my latest build.

Cheers!

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

DVA455
Senior Captain, MD-88

Joined on April 29 2002
Century Club

"Aquatone"
Shelbyville, IN

132 legs, 255.8 hours
79 legs, 158.6 hours online
29 legs, 52.9 hours ACARS
2 legs, 3.8 hours event
276 legs, 632.7 hours total
23 legs dispatched, 11.3 hours

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 11:03 ET by Ryan Watkins

No bad reviews here. ASRock puts out a good product and the 3770K will play nice for you.

You're going to use up at least half of your drive space with Windows, FS, and addons alone, depending on Windows options installed and how many addons you have. A boot drive as Luke mentions will help you out in that enterprise. A 64GB solid is resonably priced these days.

Ryan Watkins (DVA455)

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 12:00 ET by Rahul Parkar

Hmm, I thought a 128GB for windows, FS and its addons might be enough, but an upgrade couldn't hurt anything other than my wallet.

The 2TB would hold all of my other stuff anyway.

I thought about the Gigabyte GTX660, this may swing me.

Thanks guys!

Rahul Parkar

Captain, A320

DVA3530
Captain, B767-300
OLP

Joined on September 09 2006

Bristol, CT

63 legs, 88.2 hours
55 legs, 75.1 hours online
61 legs, 83.9 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 16:14 ET by Dave Stankiewicz

If you let your FSX addiction get out of control(like me), 128GB won't be enough for everything. My FSX folder, itself, is just shy of 100GB right now.

Dave Stankiewicz

Captain, B767-300

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 18:25 ET by Rahul Parkar

I hadn't even thought about moving to FSX, I was focusing on either FS9 or XP10, mainly because I feel like I have so much money invested in FS9, and XP has a lot of good freeware and reviews.

Rahul Parkar

Captain, A320

DVA3530
Captain, B767-300
OLP

Joined on September 09 2006

Bristol, CT

63 legs, 88.2 hours
55 legs, 75.1 hours online
61 legs, 83.9 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 19:08 ET by Dave Stankiewicz

Bah, you need to get with the times man...lol. You'll have no issues, at all, running FSX on that hardware. Plus the fact that neither FS9 nor XP10 will never look like this: http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/5737/ngx1.jpg

That's a completely unedited screenshot, btw razz

Dave Stankiewicz

Captain, B767-300

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 19:38 ET by Rahul Parkar

XP10 could, FS9 not

Rahul Parkar

Captain, A320

DVA2214
Captain, A330-300
OLP
E-MAIL

Joined on March 25 2005
50 State Club
Everett 500 Club
Globetrotter
White Knuckles Club
Million Mile Club
Millennium Club
US Capital Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary

"One takeoff and landing at a time"
Tampa, FL

1,124 legs, 2,777.2 hours
35 legs, 61.3 hours online
1,005 legs, 2,492.2 hours ACARS
1,153 legs, 2,869.7 hours total
111 legs dispatched, 90.7 hours

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 20:41 ET by Anthony Katosh

i like to give XP10 a try still kinda shying away from it. kinda like a new food i guess hahah but once more programs are release for it i might give it a try. but as I too have to much money invested in FSX more than i want to think about or tell the wife the truth about.

Anthony Katosh (DVA2214)

DVA10705
First Officer, B747-400
OLP

Joined on April 27 2012
Two Million Mile Club
Everett 500 Club
Millennium Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

Kamloops, BC Canada

1,060 legs, 5,399.0 hours
87 legs, 356.0 hours online
1,059 legs, 5,397.6 hours ACARS
15 legs, 48.6 hours event
3,528 legs, 15,773.5 hours total
15 legs dispatched, 24.4 hours

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 20:43 ET by Bill Gardiner

+to what Dave said

Bill Gardiner

First Officer, B747-400

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 22:28 ET by Rahul Parkar

Anthony Katosh wrote:

i like to give XP10 a try still kinda shying away from it. kinda like a new food i guess hahah but once more programs are release for it i might give it a try. but as I too have to much money invested in FSX more than i want to think about or tell the wife the truth about.

That's how I feel about FS9, but I guess at some point I have to try something new... Just a case of which dish it will be.

(Now to put away the money for the parts while I still have some.)

Cheers
Rahul

Rahul Parkar

Captain, A320

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 22:30 ET by Rahul Parkar

Also, can someone recommend a good case / power supply.

And, thoughts on this card, 3GB EVGA GTX 660 Ti FTW+, 28nm, PCIe 3.0 (x16), 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 1046MHz, Boost 1124MHz, Cores 1344 w/Backplate? Over this card, 3GB Gigabyte GTX 660 Ti Overclocked, 28nm, PCIe 3.0 (x16), 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 1032MHz, Boost 1111MHz +Free Games

Thanks,
Rahul

Rahul Parkar

Captain, A320

DVA8158
Captain, B767-300
OLP

Joined on December 31 2009
Century Club
Online Century Club
50 State Club

"Eight hours bottle to throttle."
Newnan, GA USA

197 legs, 437.5 hours
161 legs, 329.8 hours online
196 legs, 435.9 hours ACARS
5 legs, 17.1 hours event

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 22:55 ET by Peter Bagrationoff

Great specs you are looking at there. I have an Asus 660ti 2GB card and dont think the extra GB will be worth it for FSX alone. The most I can get mine to use is 1.4 GB in heavy weather with OpusFSX using AS2012 textures in the PMDG 757NGX. I also suggest a good aftermarket cooler if you plan to overclock. I have the Corsair H80 which looks great in this Corsair case which I also highly recommend :

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139005&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA&gclid=CJTw9Nmo1bQCFQWonQodmloA5w

I know its a bit pricey but this will likely be the last case you'll ever need. If you can wait a bit and catch it on sale like I did in October you can probably save another $30 or $40 off that price.

I'm at 4.5 Ghz on my 3770k and the highest temps I see in FSX are about 56c with the closed loop liquid cooler. I was a bit apprehensive at first but its very easy to install. Here's a pic from when I was putting it together:

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/b458/cherokeecruiser2002/FSX/2012-09-25093950_zps2d380e01.jpg

I need a better pic showing the inside while running but here is the case:

http://i1045.photobucket.com/albums/b458/cherokeecruiser2002/FSX/2012-09-27084422_zpsaf75c38e.jpg

One more suggestion...as Luke said...get a larger SSD - you won't regret it. I had a 100 GB OCZ Vertex from my previous build and it wasn't enough so I added a second SSD...an OCZ Vertex 3 240 GB. Now my 240 GB drive is for my OS and a few other apps. The 100 GB SSD is only for FSX. If you are going to use the SSD for anything else go big!

You'll be happy with the new build and putting it all together is fun. Good luck and keep us posted!

Peter Bagrationoff (DVA8158)

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 23:04 ET by Rahul Parkar

I see what you mean with costly on the tower, I've heard the stock fan that comes with the i7 is pretty bad so that's on my list anyway, thanks for recommendation, writing down the case details now... I probably shouldn't have spoken to you guys, price has increased £150 already hehe.

Thanks,
Rahul

Rahul Parkar

Captain, A320

DVA11180
Captain, A320

Joined on December 12 2012
Century Club

Minneapolis, MN

143 legs, 266.3 hours
133 legs, 249.7 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on January 06 2013 23:31 ET by Caleb Williams

Dunno about the i7, but the fan on the i5 is what I believe is giving me consistent hardware crashes due to what I can only assume is overheating (haven't been able to nail the problem down 100% yet) and it looks like I need to upgrade the CPU fan. Also I have the Z77 PRO and it's working for me well minus the above issue.

As to the GPU, those look largley the same tech wise, so I would look at the differences: company, support, software, etc.

YMMV,

- Caleb

Caleb Williams

Captain, A320

Posted onPost created on January 07 2013 09:47 ET by Peter Bagrationoff

There are still some really good air coolers out there that are fairly quiet and much cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103099&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA&gclid=CN3U15a01rQCFQY5nAodS1MA8g

I had this one in my last i7 860 rig and it worked great. It is huge but will fit in the Corsair case. You may need low profile memory if you fill up all 4 DIMM slots though.

Peter Bagrationoff (DVA8158)

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