Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Upgrade to FS9 Computer

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support | Upgrade to FS9 Computer

DVA3810
Captain, B737-800

Joined on December 15 2006
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Yate, South Gloucestershire GB

490 legs, 1,376.5 hours
469 legs, 1,330.0 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on August 27 2013 18:52 ET by Peter Keenan

Dear All,

I'm committed to FS9 for now having spent a long time getting it stable and a having a lot of AI traffic. I plan to make some upgrades to my computer,as follows.

I'm intending to upgrade the processor and introduce a new graphics card, but I'm going to retain my current motherboard, which is an ASUS P5N-D. My current CPU is a Intel Quad Q9450, and I'd like to use a faster one to improve my frame rates.

So may I ask if any one has a recommendation for the fastest CPU which is compatible with my motherboard, and which can be overclocked. As I'm running FS9, it could be a dual or a quad CPU.

I appreciate that the CPU won't be in current production, but I've found that there are a variety of places where one can purchase older CPU's

I also intend to buy a water cooler so as to control the CPU temperature.

With respect to the other upgrades, I plan to put FS9 on to an SSD and to replace my current graphics card with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX680.

Many thanks in advance for any assistance that can be provided.

Best regards,

Peter Keenan
DVA3810

Peter Keenan

Captain, B737-800

DVA4215
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on March 12 2007
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Pleasant Grove, UT USA

636 legs, 1,647.2 hours
410 legs, 746.5 hours online
589 legs, 1,563.2 hours ACARS
7 legs, 10.3 hours event

Posted onPost created on August 27 2013 19:19 ET by Kyle Hatch

I used to use an Intel E8600 for my FS9 rig and never had to overclock or touch it and FS9 never dropped below 30fps. That was a fully loaded FS9 too with addons such as Maddog 08, REX, AS6.5, GE pro, Ultimate Terrain, FsGenesis, FSDreamTeam airports, FlightBeam SFO, pretty much you name it I had it. I'm pretty confident you can get really good frames without overclocking for FS9. The video card DOES matter however. The GTX680 should be plenty fine for it. I ran a GTX560 with near perfect results.

I would *think* all you would need to do to run FS9 maxed and smooth would be:
Keep your CPU (By the way, whats its' speed?)
RAM upgrade (MAX would be 8GB)
GPU upgrade (You should be set with a GTX680)
Keep FS9 and Windows OS on a separate hard drive (Looks like you have that in the plans, good!)
Run Windows 7 64-bit

As far as what CPU to upgrade to with that motherboard, I'll have to let someone else step in for that.

I hope this helps a little bit!

Kyle Hatch (DVA4215)

DVA10131
Captain, MD-11
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Posted onPost created on August 28 2013 01:09 ET by Robbie Johnson

At this point I would probably shy away from putting any serious money in an upgrade without switching mobos and grabbing Ivy or Haswell. For a modern CPU you would need to change out the mobo, CPU, and RAM at a minimum. It's also probably a good idea to go ahead and swap out the PSU as well (they are often the first thing to go, depending on the quality). Since you want to overclock I would recommend either the 3570k or the 4670k; no need for an i7 as you will most likely never need the extra threads. Also a decent air cooler can often beat most closed loop water coolers performance wise, I mainly use liquid for the aesthetics.

For a GPU upgrade a 680 is completely overkill for FS9 or FSX; My best recommendation would be a 760 which has more than enough performance for only ~$250.

Robbie Johnson (DVA10131)

Posted onPost created on August 28 2013 01:33 ET by Peter Keenan

Dear Kyle and Robbie,

Many thanks for getting back to me.

The E6800 looks a good bet to me. I've seen it overclocked to 4.3 GHZ.

In my current system, I have two hard drives with two operating systems, Windows 7 64 bit and Windows XP. With respect to power, I used to have 2 NVIDIA graphic cards, (they both failed) so I have plenty of juice from my PSU.

For FS9, I use Windows XP. On my systems FS9 doesn't run so well with Windows 7.

I have 8GB RAM, and I have adjusted FS9 to access 4 GB.

I will at some time go to FSX or Prepar3D at which time I'll buy a new computer. For now, I'll keep my current set up.

Best regards,

Peter

Peter Keenan

Captain, B737-800

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