Non-techy needs computer design help

[Morgan3820]

I am thinking of setting up a three panel flight simulator. Ebay has a bunch of reasonably priced refurbished Dell Optiplex 790 w/ i5 3.3Gz 2500 4 GB ram. Would this work well for my purposes? One listed comes with a dual output AMD ATI Radeon PCI Express video card. Could I run three monitors with a splitter, or would I need to get a new video card and power supply? I am planning on running the P3D sim software.
Thank you

 

[masloki]

P3D is based on Microsoft flight simulator, so it can be driven by a single video card and computer. Splitters on video cards tend to be wonky, so your best bet is to grab a video card that can drive the resolution you are going to have, typically 5760x1080. I would guess this would be $175 and up to get that resolution, where "and up" gets your more sparkly things on the screen. NVidia seems to have the better hardware this year, at least from efficiency (wattage). Performance (frame per second) per dollar seems to be a wash.

 

[BigBadLou]

Dell i5? Yikes, not the best choice.
I recommend building your own with a better processor for less money.

Stay away from Radeon, it is utter junk (had a few, threw them out, replaced with nVidia).
You will need either an expensive video card that can run 3 monitors or get a Matrox TripleHead2Go. You will need a good video card with plenty of memory to run the resolution.

P3D, as Dana pointed out, is just a repackaged decade-old FSX with a few bug fixes and a new buggy user interface so not worth the $2300 sticker price. The $5 box of FSX from your local used book store will do the trick.

Ultimately, it comes down to what you expect to use the sim for.

 

[Jim Rosenow]

These guys know all there is to know... http://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/forum.php

.... Every couple months there's a 'what's the latest hot computer set-up for sim' thread, so Search is your friend.

Most folks can build a desktop, it's not rocket science...youtube is your friend there.

I'm running FSX on a re-purposed forensics computer, with 2 monitors. You might consider a HD TV instead, for the price.

Jim

 

[Maverick]

Stay away from Radeon, it is utter junk (had a few, threw them out, replaced with nVidia).
You will need either an expensive video card that can run 3 monitors or get a Matrox TripleHead2Go. You will need a good video card with plenty of memory to run the resolution.

I'll second that on the Radeon, junk. I've had a lot of problems with those. I only use nVidia now.