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CT4ME said:
With the SSD, I assume you are saying "I want it fast!".... if so, why get an i5? For that matter why not 12 or 16GB of RAM?

Sorry, I'm not a fan of "Frankenstein Boxes".... (wait for booing to subside).... almost none of my geek buddies build their own boxes any more either. I personally want a box that has a good warranty and service. I want to know each and every part is fully compatible with the other parts.

The main difference between "Premium" business computers and consumer computers is consistency, and conservative design. I'm told each Dell Optiplex that rolls off the line strives to have the exact same components as the previous or next 10,000 units. The design and build has been thoroughly tested and will perform in a very predictable manner. They are designed to operate well within the envelope of safety... whereas lesser designs sometimes operate near the rough edges of stability. The consumer units are more interested in production volume and will use whatever parts they can to fill the boxes. Think of Lucy in the candy production line. Frankenstein boxes are even worse... each one is usually a bunch of parts cobbled together, never to be repeated again. I'm not saying they won't work... but I want something more than "likely to work"

In 35 years I've built a bunch of boxes (used to sell them) and seen a bunch of crap out there. Almost every one that "was a good deal" or "built by a genius who KNOWS how to build them" turned out to be a POS. These days, except in special cases, it just doesn't pay to get a "white box". YMMV
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Well, I’ve never owned a “bad” computer. Whether it was a budget HP, or the Dell I’ve upgraded to get it through the past decade. I do think that buying “Frankenstein boxes” certainly has its risks. In this case, the company who builds them has been in operation for almost two decades here in Tulsa with a few locations. They offer new builds, refurbs, as well as repair and parts. They are a legitimate business, although I’ve never had reason to consider them until now.

I guess the real question is what you consider a “Frankenstein box”? If it runs a common Intel i5 processor and compatible motherboard/drivers, what instability arises?

I don’t know that I need 8GB DDR3 ram, that’s just what it comes with. I can request any amount of ram, hard drives, etc. They build cheaper models and high-end gaming computers, too. The SSD for the OS is just for faster boot speeds and program operation, I’m not concerned about any read/write speeds.


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denverpilot said:
Flight sims are kinda “heavy lifting” if you don’t want them to suck.
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This is true,lol. I use mostly X-Plane 11, AFS2 and DCS World. Personally, I enjoy building my own high end PC every 5 to 7 years for flight sims. Haven't bought a brand name one in decades. When I started building them, it was more for the cost savings. As stated earlier, that no longer applies. I'm sure I spent more on my last build (a little over a year ago) than I would have with a store bought one.
 
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SoonerAviator said:
If it runs a common Intel i5 processor and compatible motherboard/drivers, what instability arises?

I don’t know that I need 8GB DDR3 ram, that’s just what it comes with.
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Depends on which i5. There's a huge difference between say an i5-750S and an i5-8600k.

But if it is using DDR3 and not DDR4 then it's not likely the latter.
 
denverpilot said:
If you’re doing flight sims listen to @redtail. He’s posted some videos that came from one of his rigs and they’re smooth.
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My only caveat to that is that I fire it up once every 3-4 months just to practice procedural stuff for an hour. I don’t go full-out for hours with multiple screens, yoke, rudder pedals. I don’t know how powerful the system needs to be in order to do that. I don’t need the graphics at full acceleration, but it’s always nice if it can handle that.


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In all honesty, I don't really keep up with all of the latest tech (cpu, gpu, etc) on a regular basis. I only get excited enough to catch up when I'm approaching time for my next build/project. By that time, I'm ready to go all out with high-end components, overclocking, tweaking and pushing the current flightsims to their max (a longtime hobby of mine). I build solely for myself for the joy of it.
So I don't want to recommend anything for you, but based on what you're using it for, you're probably good to go with something like the one you found for $500.
XP11 should run fairly well on that.
 
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asicer said:
Depends on which i5. There's a huge difference between say an i5-750S and an i5-8600k.

But if it is using DDR3 and not DDR4 then it's not likely the latter.
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It's a 4th Gen i5, not sure which model specifically. Definitely not anything latest-generation or two.
 
redtail said:
In all honesty, I don't really keep up with all of the latest tech (cpu, gpu, etc) on a regular basis. I only get excited enough to catch up when I'm approaching time for my next build/project. By that time, I'm ready to go all out with high-end components, overclocking, tweaking and pushing the current flightsims to their max (a longtime hobby of mine). I build solely for myself for the joy of it.
So I don't want to recommend anything for you, but based on what you're using it for, you're probably good to go with something like the one you found for $500.
XP11 should run fairly well on that.
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That's understandable. While I'd love to go all out and run overclocked i7 with tons of RAM and high-end video cards, it'd go to waste doing some basic MS Office work and occassional FSX/XP11 work. The wife would think I was crazy for dropping $2K on a computer.
 
haha I hear ya. I spend very little money on myself compared to a lot of guys I know. Don't smoke, drink, gamble and I'm not into sports (never have any of those), so my wife never nags me for spending big bucks for the few things I enjoy. In fact, sometimes she pushes me to spend more than I intended to. On the other hand, I don't mind all the handbags and shoes she buys either LOL.

Once in awhile she will come up to the man cave and try one of my gadgets. She tried my VR set (Oculus Rift) and was blown away by the realism. I couldn't get her to take the yoke and fly it, but she was amazed by the view. Funny because she took the yoke a few times in the real plane, but didn't feel she was ready for VR :D


BTW, I use my laptop and ipad for everything else, the desktop is strictly for flightsims.
 
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SoonerAviator said:
It's a 4th Gen i5, not sure which model specifically. Definitely not anything latest-generation or two.
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That's a 4 year old CPU (Haswell). Coupled with the old Lynx Point chipset, you'll be limited with your future upgrade options what with the 8 Lane gen 2 pcie vs 24 lane gen 3, DDR3 vs DDR4, DMI 2.0 vs DMI 3.0 and lack of M.2

Also, the old Haswell i5's were 4 core/4 thread whereas the latest Coffee Lake i5 are 6 core/6 thread.
 
asicer said:
That's a 4 year old CPU (Haswell). Coupled with the old Lynx Point chipset, you'll be limited with your future upgrade options what with the 8 Lane gen 2 pcie vs 24 lane gen 3, DDR3 vs DDR4, DMI 2.0 vs DMI 3.0 and lack of M.2

Also, the old Haswell i5's were 4 core/4 thread whereas the latest Coffee Lake i5 are 6 core/6 thread.
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True, but I don't think he's looking for the latest/greatest. My understanding is that the core clock speeds of the newer Coffee Lake CPUs are lower than the Kaby Lakes.

Flightsims at the moment are more dependent on higher clock speeds than cores. I'm sure they will take better advantage of multicores in the future, but at the moment you're better off with the highest clock speed you can get, not the highest number of cores/threads.

I'm running an i7-7700K @ 5GHZ with a Thermaltake water cooler.


PCGamesN.com
"But what does this impressive Coffee Lake core upgrade mean for gamers? Almost nothing. Only Civ VI delivers any performance boost over the Kaby Lake i7, showing once more how little relevance an increased thread-count has for most gamers. The i7, then, is overkill for us, more so than with any previous Intel generation. It's also likely to rather expensive with global stock shortages likely to artificially inflate the price of the entire Coffee Lake range."
 
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SoonerAviator said:
That's understandable. While I'd love to go all out and run overclocked i7 with tons of RAM and high-end video cards, it'd go to waste doing some basic MS Office work and occassional FSX/XP11 work. The wife would think I was crazy for dropping $2K on a computer.
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I’ll make the decision harder. Haha.

Spending $2000 on a machine usually means it’s somewhat “future proofed” for quite a long time. You can “live with it” for longer perhaps. Some new flight sim upgrade comes along and crushes the discount machine, it only mildly bothers the expensive one. Or you slap a new GPU in it to help it along.

I’m still running 2011 Apples because they were i7s at the time... heh. Gave me plenty of time to stew over what’s next. Like probably before the decade is out but maybe not. :) :) :)

Technically I could buy a work only extra machine for home and depreciate that beast as an unreimbursed business expense in my line of work, too. At a seven year depreciation cycle it’s simply not worth tracking it though. Especially with the upping of the standard deductions next year.

But $200 a year sounds a lot better than $2000 for a computer if I run it ten years. And even if I replaced the Apple machines as daily drivers I’d still use them.

And I suppose I did add RAM and SSDs to them so they were more than $2000 total. But the second one was bought used about four years ago so it wasn’t $2000 even with the RAM and SSD. I also tried a hybrid drive in one of them early on when SSDs were speedy. It sucked. :)
 
redtail said:
My understanding is that the core clock speeds of the newer Coffee Lake CPUs are lower than the Kaby Lakes.

Flightsims at the moment are more dependent on higher clock speeds than cores. I'm sure they will take better advantage of multicores in the future, but at the moment you're better off with the highest clock speed you can get, not the highest number of cores/threads.
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The i5-8400 has a slower base clock than Haswell but the i5-8600K has a faster one. However, the i5-8400 can go higher on TurboBoost. But also don't ignore the effect of cache. The old Haswell has only 6MB L3 while Coffee Lake has 9MB L3.
 
asicer said:
The i5-8400 has a slower base clock than Haswell but the i5-8600K has a faster one. However, the i5-8400 can go higher on TurboBoost. But also don't ignore the effect of cache. The old Haswell has only 6MB L3 while Coffee Lake has 9MB L3.
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Which one has Intel’s gaping security flaw fixed? :)
 
Alright, well I appreciate the info guys. I’m think I’m leaning towards just getting one of the refurb Dell Optiplex or XPS towers from Newegg for around $7-800 with the i5 6th gen processor, SSD/hdd combo and 8GB ddr4. It’s only $300 more, but gets me a newer version of the processor (considering the AMD, too). Only downside is that there’s no separate graphics card at this price level. I figure I can run it as-is and if I have issues on FSX/XP11 I can drop another $200-300 on a 4GB graphics card upgrade that should get me along for quite some time.




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SoonerAviator said:
Only downside is that there’s no separate graphics card at this price level. I figure I can run it as-is and if I have issues on FSX/XP11 I can drop another $200-300 on a 4GB graphics card upgrade that should get me along for quite some time.
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I haven't played around with flight simulators in a long time, but I can't imagine you'll be happy with FSX/XP11 without discrete graphics. That said, I agree completely that once you put a solid graphics card in that rig you'll be plenty happy.
 
kayoh190 said:
I haven't played around with flight simulators in a long time, but I can't imagine you'll be happy with FSX/XP11 without discrete graphics. That said, I agree completely that once you put a solid graphics card in that rig you'll be plenty happy.
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Well, I was able to run FSX on my current computer (medium settings) with an Nvidia FX 550 - 128MB graphics card, lol. I figure the integrated graphics card can’t be much worse than that.


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SoonerAviator said:
Well, I was able to run FSX on my current computer (medium settings) with an Nvidia FX 550 - 128MB graphics card, lol. I figure the integrated graphics card can’t be much worse than that.
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Heh - you're probably right!
 
SoonerAviator said:
That's understandable. While I'd love to go all out and run overclocked i7 with tons of RAM and high-end video cards, it'd go to waste doing some basic MS Office work and occassional FSX/XP11 work. The wife would think I was crazy for dropping $2K on a computer.
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You are a pilot, right? :)
 
Alright, well I bit the bullet and bought a new Dell XPS 8920 (2016 model) for $700. Staples is apparently getting rid of new old stock.

i7-7700 processor
1TB HDD
8GB DDR4 Ram
Nvidia GT 730 2GB graphics card

Only item it’s missing is the SSD, but I can always add that for fairly cheap and image the OS over to boot from it instead of the HDD.

With the processor and graphics card, it ought to hold up for 5-6 years without needing any upgrades. Thus ends the great hope pc saga, lol. Much thanks to all for the recommendations.


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I built my first computer about 2 months ago and i’ll likely never buy another desktop. It was a fun process, not at all tedious and a very good value.

I went with top of the line stuff to run a really resource intense flight simulator (DCS) but I have plans to build another PC as a workstation so I don’t have to put Microsoft office and my work crap on the flight sim computer.

Current build has an i7-8700k, 1080ti, 32gb 3200 RAM.. :)
 
dell30rb said:
I built my first computer about 2 months ago and i’ll likely never buy another desktop. It was a fun process, not at all tedious and a very good value.

I went with top of the line stuff to run a really resource intense flight simulator (DCS) but I have plans to build another PC as a workstation so I don’t have to put Microsoft office and my work crap on the flight sim computer.

Current build has an i7-8700k, 1080ti, 32gb 3200 RAM.. :)
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Ive built a couple in the past, nothing high-end. I just couldn’t make the numbers work below $700 when adding up similar components. It didn’t use to be close, as you could put $500 into a custom build that could hang with $750+ pre-built computers. Seems like you have to drop $1K for a gaming-style rig before you can match the economies of scale that Dell/HP/ASUS enjoy. Graphics cards over 4GB have gotten crazy in price. That 1080ti costs more than my whole new computer, lol.


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SoonerAviator said:
Ive built a couple in the past, nothing high-end. I just couldn’t make the numbers work below $700 when adding up similar components. It didn’t use to be close, as you could put $500 into a custom build that could hang with $750+ pre-built computers. Seems like you have to drop $1K for a gaming-style rig before you can match the economies of scale that Dell/HP/ASUS enjoy. Graphics cards over 4GB have gotten crazy in price. That 1080ti costs more than my whole new computer, lol.


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Well if you exclude the graphics card it’s a good deal :). You are correct that right now, you can’t build a computer for less than it would cost to buy one. This is a temporary phenomenon. A year ago, it was not the case. A few months from now, things will be back to normal.

The reason is bitcoin/etherium mining. High end custom computer components, especially graphics cards, just flew off the shelf.

It took me 4 weeks to get a 1080ti for MSRP. I had to set a ton of email alerts and be the fastest to checkout when they became available. The street price used to be significantly less than MSRP. Now it’s wayyy higher.
 
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