Replacing my dead computer

[OldAirmail]

My old computer worked very well for FSX/Prepar3d.

Just about all of the sliders that mattered to me were maxed out, and for the most part the FPS were about 25-30FPS. To some, that may not sound all that good, but FSX/P3d was very smooth.

Checking, I see that I bought the old parts seven years ago. Not cutting edge at the time, they were still higher end than most people used.

Now I need to do it all again, search for the best system that I can afford.

Some will disagree with my choices and point out better options. But this is what I've decided. Some choices will be obvious, and some may seem strange.

Here is a reasoning though for each of the major parts.



First, my case - I see no reason to change it. It's a full size tower, plenty of room to do with as I choose.


Next the OS - As much as I dislike the user monitoring built into Windows 10 Pro, I will switch to that. This is going to cause a great deal of trouble, because my old system was an upgrade of Windows XP to Windows 7 Pro and a lot of data/programs will not cross over. This will also necessitate a lot of installing old programs that may no longer be available.

Additionally, Windows 10 will be needed to run some of the new tech that'll be in the new system. To some degree I could probably find ways around that, but the future is pretty clear: you want a fast, modern, system, you have to change with the times. Just imagine trying to keep Windows 95 running on a new system.

Now I've warned people in an earlier post about buying into this "Free Windows 10 upgrade" thing. The problem is that it's a ONE TIME upgrade. If anything happens to your computer you WILL need to buy a full Windows 10 license. The same thing applies to those who buy, or build, a new computer.

So I've ordered a new FULL copy of Windows 10 Professional. Normally $200 I got it for $150. With this version I can install it on a replacement computer.


The Processor - No doubt about it, I want an i7-6700K Skylake Quad-Core 4.0GHz. But as the only "game" that I play is Prepar3d, I only need an i5-6600K Skylake Quad-Core 3.5 GHz.

At the moment FSX/Prepar3d doesn't benefit all that much from an i7. But if Preppar3d switched to DirectX 12 then it will work far better with an i7 CPU. My AMD card can already use DirectX 12.

So far I haven't decided, although I REALLY do want the 4GHz i7.


The Motherboard - In the past I've bought components that should last and give me the most leeway. I could have bought just a new power supply, but this may be the last time that I can afford to put together a good system that will last for years.

If you asked 1,000 people for the best motherboard, you'd probably get 1,500 different answers. And there are better boards than the one I've ordered - ASUS Z170 PRO GAMING. I bought a "reboxed" board for $40 less.


The Memory - I've ordered the G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB DDR4 3200. I've got G.SKILL Ripjaws RAM now and it passes all torture tests. Love 'em.

For those that are cognoscente of the Skylake CPU will, no doubt, know that the Intel specs call for a max voltage of 1.2v and a max speed of 2133.

Since when does the computer world pay attention to such things? DDR4 Memory Scaling on Intel Z170

I'm not one to push for maximum tweaking but the board and memory can VERY easily push up those numbers and stay air cooled. I don't need it to go to 4,000. Setting the MB to use the G.SKILL speed of 3200 won't stress this system.


New SSD - Everyone is probably tired of hearing me push solid state drives. But even the oldest and slowest ones are faster than most hard drives.

My old 250GB SSD is still working, but as I said I'm looking to the future. The new is a 480GB Corsair Force Series LE SSD for $123!


The Power Supply - Yeah. That D E A D thing.

By now the total is getting near the maximum that I want to spend. I could easily buy a lower Wattage power supply, but I want to use two high end Eyefinity video cards in my system, and the old 700Watt supply would have been pushing it.

This is on it's way now - Sentey MBP1000-HM Metal Blade Power 1000Watts 80 Plus Bronze. It's a hybrid modular design so I don't have to have unused cables cluttering up the computer case.


And last the DVD Drive - Some will tell me that I'm crazy for not getting a Blu-ray drive. After all, don't I want to march right into the future?

No. Most of the movies that I watch, I watch online. My old DVD drive was a little quirky so I decided to replace it with a Samsung SATA drive. This will do me fine, I rarely use the one that I have now.


Conclusion - Yes, I've made some concessions. This is not the best that I could afford, but it will be one that I can easily live with.



There is really only one more choice to make - What to get the wife so she'll stop grumbling that I'm spending too much money on myself and nothing on her.

[Flacke]

Hello OAM, some feedback for you. My new 'puter is running Windows 10 Pro with Asus Z170M-Plus m/brd, SkyLake Processor, DD4 memory, and my first SSD. This system could not possibly work better with FSX. I am totally pleased with it all. Asus does recommend at least a 1000-watt P/S if you plan to use two video-cards so you are right on with that choice. I would personally not pay the extra money for an 8-core i7 for use with FSX but that is entirely your choice. If you can afford it , it certainly won't hurt. So, I think your choices sound great and when its all said and done.........enjoy!

[SpaceHippy1975]

Hi OldAirmail,

Looking at what you're looking at component wise it's very similar to my rig (see my sig) so it'll will run really well, although it does slow down over major cities etc with all the sliders turned waaay up!

I run 2 Samsung 500GB SSDs, one as my main C-Drive & the other as my P3D only drive, I've been quite happy with their performance.

What GPU are you looking to use? I'm currently running a Radeon R9 290 which is good enough but eventually would like to go over to an Nvidia card after my change jar is full enough (saving £2 coins )

I must admit, when I get all of my components together in preperation for the build I get a really nervous feeling but excited too! Will I bugger a component up or fry the motherboard! I especially dread the CPU installation, getting the fan & heatsink fitted. I don't really like the idea of a full water cooling system but I may get one of these in the future to cool my CPU,
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/comp ... 20-ww.html

Hope your build goes well!

[OldAirmail]

Thanks for the encouragement, guys.

Flacke, I just ordered the i7-6700K Skylake 4.0GHz CPU. Intellectually, I know that all I really need for FSX, or Prepar3d as it is now, is an i5 CPU. But if Prepar3d goes to DirectX 12 that i7 will make a world of difference.

So I ordered it an hour ago, along with some ARCTIC MX-4 Thermal Paste, Carbon Based Thermal Compound.


SpaceHippy, I'm using a AMD R9 280X at the moment.

As to giving up your Radeon R9 290 for an NVidia card, I don't know....

If you spend some time reading the post on the Prepar3d user forums you'll see a lot of people with NVidia cards complaining.

Seriously, my 280X is slower than the high end NVidia cards and they're complaining about having to lower some settings.

That may have been fixed recently by NVidia though.


Your computer is a very close match to what I've ordered!

I guess that I did OK then.

[Flacke]

Hi OAM, glad to hear that you have gotten started on your ordering. That i7 will most definitely "future-proof" you for a long time to come. Please let us know as to your progress on this project [I know you will!] . Its interesting to so many of us to see how you design the new system and then to hear how it all works etc. when all is done.

[OldAirmail]

Thanks, Flacke.

Building a new system is simple, as far as assembling it goes. Although I will readily admit that when I used to smoke I would always light one up before I turned on the power.

In another way though, it takes a lot of investigating to find the right parts that'll work together. Not everyone cares about that.


For about two days after I accepted that I'd need to build a new system, I didn't really think about what I wanted in a new system, so much as what I wanted it to do.

Did I just want to get going in the quickest way? Or did I want to replace almost everything and build the best that I could with what I have available?

Somewhat like the decision about a broke down car - Fix it, or buy a new one to last the years with all the fancy things like radio & air conditioning in it. Maybe an eight track too.


After deciding how far I wanted to go, I then had the hard part of deciding what I wanted IN it.

I came up with three lists; high end, medium end, and economy.

It was quickly decided that the "economy" list had to go. It would've felt to much like buying a new set of crutches.


One way that Newegg proved VERY useful was in it's ability to let you create different "wish lists", and total them up as you added parts to the lists. If you wanted you could select to buy part, or all, of the items on a list with one or two clicks.

In the end, I bought some parts from Newegg, some from Amazon.

But the online "wish lists" helped me to decide just what I wanted, and could afford.



"Please let us know as to your progress on this project [I know you will!] . Its interesting to so many of us to see how you design the new system..."

My hope is that this will be more interesting by going into the WHY of what I chose. A simple list of WHAT would be of far lass interest.

Simviation has some very knowledgeable people, but there doesn't seem to be much of a general interest in the "hard" side of flight simming.

In my own way I like the nuts and bolts side as much as the explorative flights that I take.



If anyone has questions, go ahead and ask.

[Flacke]

Thanks, Flacke.
In my own way I like the nuts and bolts side as much as the explorative flights that I take.
.

That describes me as well. I am very interested in the technical aspect as well as the joys of flying. Its been like that since I was 15 years old and flew an airplane for the first time. It never gets old or boring to me. There are always new technologies coming along that need to be studied and learned.

In my case I also made a " good-better-best" list and discarded the "good" pretty quickly. The good things that I had to discard just to save a few dollars was not worth it. I went with the "better" and now have a computer that I love, does everything I need and didn't cost much. Just the way I like it!

[OldAirmail]

Here I sit, waiting for the most important part to arrive.

No, not the CPU. Not the motherboard. The CPU cooler.

For the most part, assembling a new computer is fairly easy. But occasionally, the cooler is the hardest part to install. So I'll sit here and wait, rather than install the cooler with the motherboard mounted in the case.


Which cooler did I get?

That's an interesting question. My old cooler will work, but I have other plans for that one.

I'll try a new liquid cooler, the Lepa AquaChanger, $60.


Good or not so good, I don't know. What's intriguing is that this is the only time I have EVER seen a product on Amazon that doesn't have a one star rating!

True, the Amazon ratings for this cooler only go back to October of last year, but a lot of one star ratings come from people who have no clue about what they're doing.



While choosing the cooler, I saw this - Inateck PCI-E to USB 3.0 5-Port PCI Express Card, $32.



An interesting aspect of this one, is that it has additional power connected to the board, and there are two USB outputs on the top right edge of the board.

I'm not sure what the count is at the moment, but at one time I'd counted 17 USB plugs attached to my computer.

[Roypcox]

Sorry to hear about your putter troubles OAM. I had to spend a ton on my old machine when I foolishly installed W10 when it first came out. I lost all of my 2004 aircraft and Gary B helped to get it back again with the no CD work around. I feel that they have probably fixed it now but I learned a very valuable lesson, never to download anything when it first comes out give Windows time to get all the bugs out. I was able to rescue my old putter with professional help but was out $100.00 bucks to get it fixed. I am elderly and on SS and not a penny to spare and had to get into my burial money but maybe I will live long enough to save it back up.

[OldAirmail]

Sorry to hear about your putter troubles OAM. I had to spend a ton on my old machine when I foolishly installed W10 when it first came out. I lost all of my 2004 aircraft and Gary B helped to get it back again with the no CD work around. I feel that they have probably fixed it now but I learned a very valuable lesson, never to download anything when it first comes out give Windows time to get all the bugs out. I was able to rescue my old putter with professional help but was out $100.00 bucks to get it fixed. I am elderly and on SS and not a penny to spare and had to get into my burial money but maybe I will live long enough to save it back up.

I can easily understand that $100 costing you dearly, Before the end of this year I'll probably be unable to work.

On the other hand, that's one of the reasons that I went for a new computer build rather than repair my old computer. Short of someone giving me a winning lottery, this may be the last "good" computer that I'll ever have.


As to the Windows 10 problem - right this very moment I'm backing up the third drive - 31 minutes to go.

Once that's done I'll clone it over to a new, larger, drive. THEN I can start building my new system, and Windows 10 will go on my old drive.

[OldAirmail]

Time for bed, but the new computer is up and running with Windows 10.

Installed FSX, FPS in the low 60s.

That's all for now.

[Jetranger]

Well I bought this ol' boys computer off E-Bay its what I use for Flight Simming, maybe I should upgrade ????

Decisions - Decisions


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Q2dCG7SSCc[/youtube]

[Fozzer]

My job, from 1959 to 1984, when I retired, was a Electrical design draughtsman for a company, designing air conditioning control systems for industrial computer installations which involved massive refrigeration plants with very large compressors, and overhead and under-floor ducted air systems to control the air temperature (68-72*F) and humidity (50%) in the computer rooms, within a very close tolerance.
This was not only to control the enormous air temperature generated by the computer electronic equipment, transformers, thermionic valves, resistors, etc, but also to control the air humidity which would otherwise affect the magnetic tape (tape stretch) on the data storage spools.

This requirement gradually decreased following the installation of much smaller and more modern computers using computer "chips" and floppy disks for data storage, etc, which generated much less heat.

At the time I retired (1984) Uncle Clive Sinclair had already invented his Sinclair ZX80, ZX81, and Spectrum 48k computers, (still using 1/4 inch magnetic tape!) which I immediately rushed out and purchased....
...and I've been an 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and 64-bit addict ever since!.... ...!

Still got all my old computers, with all their hardware, software, and instruction manuals!

Paul.....and all my 8 bits!.... ....!

[OldAirmail]

OK. It's up and running, and as I posted before, FSX is a little more than twice as fast.

At least the FPS is. Before it averaged around 25-30. Now the FPS are around the high 50s to mid 60s.

Visually, it makes very little difference. When I had the i5-2400K (not overclocked) all of the settings were maxed out, except for the AI aircraft which is of little interest to me.



Speaking of "overclocking" - that motherboard is fantastic! It has an overclocking test that finds safe overclocking settings that don't push the system too far. But if you want, and know what you're doing, you can push it as far as you want.

Before I go further, I did get the Lepa AquaChanger for $60. This was the first time that I've used one, and I can say without a doubt that it works GREAT!



The i7-6700K Skylake has a normal speed of 4GHZ, and the ASUS software brought it up to 4.5GHZ with no stress to the CPU.

At 4GHZ, and with the liquid cooler on top of course, the idling temp was about 80-90F / 26-32C.

At 4.5GHZ the idling temp is about 105-115F / 40-46C.

Under a stress test it got up to 135F / 57C.

Other software reports temperatures about 10-15 degrees lower, and CPU fan speeds less than one half of what the ASUS software reports.



I don't know how these stats are compared to other computers / liquid coolers, but I feel safe running it at these settings.

BTW - there is NO pump sound at all, and the fan on the radiator could only be heard during the stress test. Even then it wasn't all that loud.

[OldAirmail]

Talk about a stress test.

I downloaded & re-installed Prepar3d. ERROR

Completely uninstall Prepar3d. Cleaned the registry.

Re-install Prepar3d - "you have used all of your permitted installs..."

Letter sent to LM. Waiting for a reply.


And to top it off, FSX can't start either.

So much fun!