Build; suggestions, improvements?

[Luke]

The council finally granted me to build a flight simulator, so starting off - I need the rig.

Enclosure - £131.93 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/259582
Motherboard - £125.30 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/260185
Processor - £237.69 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/252535
Memory - £69.55 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/247678
Graphics - £209.99 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/254950
Power - £112.47 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/164950
1st Storage - £127.98 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/268244
2nd Storage - £45.98 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177466
Optical - £13.98 - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/176026

What's peoples opinions on this? The software is pretty CPU intensive (FSX).
Anything to be changed?

[Recursion]

- Downsize the Antec 1200 to an Antec 300 or whatever
- Why get a P8P67 Pro when you don't need the onboard video and none of the overclocking features
- You don't need a 2600k, get an i7 2600 (NON K) or even an i5 2500, FSX won't use HT.
- Don't get a PowerColor ATI card, Nvidia performs better with FSX
- RAM is fine
- 750w PSU is overkill but good choice
- Don't bother with an SSD, it'll just die
- Get a second 1TB drive and stick it in RAID0

[Luke]

- Downsize the Antec 1200 to an Antec 300 or whatever
- Why get a P8P67 Pro when you don't need the onboard video and none of the overclocking features
- You don't need a 2600k, get an i7 2600 (NON K) or even an i5 2500, FSX won't use HT.
- Don't get a PowerColor ATI card, Nvidia performs better with FSX
- RAM is fine
- 750w PSU is overkill but good choice
- Don't bother with an SSD, it'll just die
- Get a second 1TB drive and stick it in RAID0

Mobo changed to http://www.ebuyer.com/260771-asus-p8...o-atx-p8p67-r3
CPU changed to http://www.ebuyer.com/252536-intel-c...-bx80623i72600
Recommend an nVidia card? Needs HDMI and DVI out. Around same price please
Good.
PSU = room for upgrades.
I've tried SSDs with Flight Sim, and the load times are dramatically reduced, it's only going to be used MAX 5 hours a week.
I miss the Samsung F3s.

[N!ck]

Get 1.5 V or lower RAM such as:

http://www.ebuyer.com/264750-g-skill...2800cl9d-8gbxl
http://www.ebuyer.com/262580-corsair...8gx3m2a1600c9b
http://www.ebuyer.com/264753-g-skill...800cl9d-8gbsr2
http://www.ebuyer.com/262585-corsair...z8gx3m2a1866c9

Western Digital HDDs are the way forwards http://www.ebuyer.com/241718-wd-1tb-...-32mb-wd10ealx

This system is very much overkill BTW. I'd keep the 2600k though.

[Luke]

Get 1.5 V or lower RAM such as:

http://www.ebuyer.com/264750-g-skill...2800cl9d-8gbxl
http://www.ebuyer.com/262580-corsair...8gx3m2a1600c9b
http://www.ebuyer.com/264753-g-skill...800cl9d-8gbsr2
http://www.ebuyer.com/262585-corsair...z8gx3m2a1866c9

Western Digital HDDs are the way forwards http://www.ebuyer.com/241718-wd-1tb-...-32mb-wd10ealx

This system is very much overkill BTW. I'd keep the 2600k though.

Took the first one, tar.
Also changed the HDD.

And it IS an overkill, for one thing - YES; however, having experiences with FSX, and when you install addons, such as HD Textures and high polygon count aircraft etc, on 'normal' systems, it tends to fail epically. It also needs to handle a lot of modules, three outputs (all at 1920x1080) each, and still have room for improvement when next-gen software is released. I'm just future proofing really

[Recursion]

Took the first one, tar.
Also changed the HDD.

And it IS an overkill, for one thing - YES; however, having experiences with FSX, and when you install addons, such as HD Textures and high polygon count aircraft etc, on 'normal' systems, it tends to fail epically. It also needs to handle a lot of modules, three outputs (all at 1920x1080) each, and still have room for improvement when next-gen software is released. I'm just future proofing really

MS Flight was already confirmed to run a lot better than FSX. FSX won't take any advantage of HyperThreading and don't get an uber high end GPU, you want an OK GPU with lots of video memory for FSX. js.

I also saw a huge FPS increase in FSX when I overclocked my i5 2500k to 4.5GHz, I can comfortably sit at Heathrow (with scenery) in the PMDG 737NG or 747-800 on VATSIM with heavy traffic and still go over 30fps.

[Stephen!]

FSX is clock speed limited rather than the number of cores you have (on most modern CPU's anyway)

But if you're not gonna overclock that doesn't really help.

If you're running 3 Monitors and only want one GPU, it will have to be AMD since only Eyefinity can do this last time I checked. You need two Nvidia cards in SLI to power 3 monitors (Nvidia surround)

[Luke]

MS Flight was already confirmed to run a lot better than FSX. FSX won't take any advantage of HyperThreading and don't get an uber high end GPU, you want an OK GPU with lots of video memory for FSX. js.

I also saw a huge FPS increase in FSX when I overclocked my i5 2500k to 4.5GHz, I can comfortably sit at Heathrow (with scenery) in the PMDG 737NG or 747-800 on VATSIM with heavy traffic and still go over 30fps.

MS Flight isn't out yet though, and neither will the addons be for a while, so stuck with FSX and it's rather crap engine at the moment:/
The GPU has 2GB

FSX is clock speed limited rather than the number of cores you have (on most modern CPU's anyway)

But if you're not gonna overclock that doesn't really help.

If you're running 3 Monitors and only want one GPU, it will have to be AMD since only Eyefinity can do this last time I checked. You need two Nvidia cards in SLI to power 3 monitors (Nvidia surround)

Unfortunately, I'm forbidden to over clock by the council, due to 'warranty' issues and **** - and I tell a little lie, I'm going to be using a DVI splitter, because two of the monitors will be showing the exact same thing hehe

[N!ck]

I'd still go for an ATi card so you can easity do more monitors in the future then.