Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support |
Ideas on new system... |
DVA5737
Captain, B767-300
Joined on March 28 2008
Everett Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
50 State Club
Double Century Club
Commuter Conquest
Piranha Club
"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"
243 legs, 270.2 hours
18 legs,
24.8 hours online 237 legs,
261.7 hours ACARS 6 legs,
13.5 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
December 27 2008 09:45 ET by Brian Clark
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When tax and bonus season roll around, I plan on fixing my broken desktop.
I am not really interested in running FSX, FS9 is fine. Here's what I'm looking at, though the exact parts may change in the next two months but I am going to try to get around this level...
XFX NVIDIA GeForce 8200 Motherboard
Socket AM2/AM2+
Onboard NVIDIA GeForce 8200 Graphics (only 256B shared memory though, will still put my BFG NVIDIA 6200 OC in)
VGA/DVI/HMDI output, support for 8 channel audio
SATA support
Only one onboard IDE channel (there is a IDE->SATA converter out there though)...
2 PCI slots
1 PCIe 1x slot
1 PCIe 16x slot
Arctic Silver thermal paste
AMD Phenom 9500 2.20GHz CPU (I've only ever had Intel chips, so this is unknown territory to me)
Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX with 120mm Fan
At least 2GB ram, if not 4 GB
Only unknown is the OS: The CPU is a 64bit chip, so I was thinking about XP Pro 64bit (no Vista, no way!), but I don't have an experience with it and don't know if it's worth it.
Any ideas, comments, verbal outbursts are appreciated!
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DVA2787
Captain, B737-800
Joined on January 02 2006
Century Club
Online Century Club
"If it aint broke don't fix it." Cornwall Jamaica
160 legs, 599.8 hours
149 legs,
557.1 hours online 120 legs,
447.6 hours ACARS
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Posted onPost created on
December 30 2008 23:43 ET by James Hepburn
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Go for it. And yeah, stay away from Vista.
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DVA5737
Captain, B767-300
Joined on March 28 2008
Everett Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
50 State Club
Double Century Club
Commuter Conquest
Piranha Club
"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"
243 legs, 270.2 hours
18 legs,
24.8 hours online 237 legs,
261.7 hours ACARS 6 legs,
13.5 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
December 31 2008 00:09 ET by Brian Clark
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The two things that are really making me wonder are using AMD chips and going for XP 64. Does XP64 make that much of a difference on a quad core machine?
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DVA1603
Captain, B727-200
Joined on April 02 2004
Double Century Club
Albany, GA USA
266 legs, 399.1 hours
85 legs,
131.0 hours online 93 legs,
129.4 hours ACARS 2 legs,
3.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
December 31 2008 08:51 ET by Michael Wilson
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Unless you are a masochist, stay away from XP64 on a gaming platform. It looks great on paper, but it is not going to help you run FS2004 any better than your system would otherwise. It will, however, likely give you a headache with drivers and software compatibility. Some have had positive experiences with it, and some have not. My experimentation with it in a corporate setting did not yield positive results either.
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DVA3680
First Officer, B767-300
OLP
Joined on November 01 2006
Stock Car Racing Club
Century Club
Berthoud, CO
114 legs, 232.4 hours
97 legs,
212.8 hours online 106 legs,
215.1 hours ACARS 2 legs,
3.7 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
December 31 2008 11:50 ET by Kevin Williams
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Ohh!! Can I do a verbal outburst? If just for fs9 don't go quad (or tripple, whatever it is). Go for the fastest dual you can get as fs9 only uses 1 core (2 helps for task switching). Grab a X2 5000+ as it's cheap and is pretty fast.
A cheapo ATI HD 4650 or better will do you some good compared to your 6200 or the onboard 8200.
Kevin WilliamsFirst Officer, B767-300
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DVA6695
Captain, MD-88
Joined on November 26 2008
Century Club
Online Century Club
"We are....Penn State" Phoenixville, PA USA
153 legs, 206.0 hours
108 legs,
149.6 hours online 149 legs,
200.2 hours ACARS 11 legs,
20.0 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
December 31 2008 12:04 ET by Jack Urie
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I agree with Kevin--if you never plan on going to FSX, then drop down to a cheaper dual core CPU, do without the integrated MOBO graphics and get a decent video card, go with XP PRO 32 bit, and spend all of your saved dollars on payware!!!
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DVA5737
Captain, B767-300
Joined on March 28 2008
Everett Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
50 State Club
Double Century Club
Commuter Conquest
Piranha Club
"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"
243 legs, 270.2 hours
18 legs,
24.8 hours online 237 legs,
261.7 hours ACARS 6 legs,
13.5 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 02 2009 09:38 ET by Brian Clark
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Thanks for the input folks, I'll bookmark the thread so I can refer to it when I get my tax money.
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DVA5737
Captain, B767-300
Joined on March 28 2008
Everett Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
50 State Club
Double Century Club
Commuter Conquest
Piranha Club
"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"
243 legs, 270.2 hours
18 legs,
24.8 hours online 237 legs,
261.7 hours ACARS 6 legs,
13.5 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 02 2009 10:27 ET by Brian Clark
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Actually, after searching around, I think I may have a much cheaper solution. NewEgg has a socket 478 Pentium 4 (with hyperthreading that my mobo supports) that I may just pick up, since I know that the CPU is the only thing that is really bad. I'd much more like to spend 80 bucks instead of 200 if I can. One of my new years resolution is watch my budget more, and this may be a good way to work on it.
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DVA1603
Captain, B727-200
Joined on April 02 2004
Double Century Club
Albany, GA USA
266 legs, 399.1 hours
85 legs,
131.0 hours online 93 legs,
129.4 hours ACARS 2 legs,
3.4 hours event
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Posted onPost created on
January 02 2009 14:55 ET by Michael Wilson
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But which P4 is that? I do not particularly care for any of the P4's, but some are much better than others. What are the specs of what you have currently?
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DVA5737
Captain, B767-300
Joined on March 28 2008
Everett Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
50 State Club
Double Century Club
Commuter Conquest
Piranha Club
"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"
243 legs, 270.2 hours
18 legs,
24.8 hours online 237 legs,
261.7 hours ACARS 6 legs,
13.5 hours event
|
Posted onPost created on
January 02 2009 17:59 ET by Brian Clark
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What I looked at was a Pentium 4 3.0 GHz with HT enabled (Prescott Core). Right now I've got a Celeron D 2.93 GHz with 1.5 GB ram and 6200OC vid card. I was getting reasonable frame rates (pretty much mid 20's except for places like ATL and JFK, and I don't fly through there often). From what I've read on the Prescott Core, Hyper Threading makes the core look like two cores to the OS and lets it task switch much better than a regular core. I know that the CPU is the only thing bad on this machine and right now money is a premium. If I can fix it this way I could have it back up and running by the end of the month, but otherwise I'll have to wait for taxes or bonus money in March. Hate to say it, I really could use the money to fix my TV that blew out on me a month ago.
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DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP
Joined on June 10 2001
Event Half Century Club
Online Double Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary
Everett 1500 Club
Bi-Millennium Club
Four Million Mile Club
"Col. Panic" Marietta, GA
2,241 legs, 8,967.3 hours
240 legs,
553.9 hours online 1,899 legs,
7,760.4 hours ACARS 75 legs,
196.3 hours event 2,277 legs, 9,102.2 hours total 91 legs dispatched, 66.4
hours
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Posted onPost created on
January 02 2009 18:31 ET by Luke Kolin
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I used to run a 2.6Ghz Northwood P4 (which is similar to the Prescott) overclocked to 2.9Ghz, so we're almost at the same specs. FS9 is essentially single-threaded, so you're not going to see any meaningful improvement there (although you probably will online when running ServInfo and other tasks where the second "virtual" core can help).
Really, you're better off saving your money for a Core2 CPU and an 8800-class GPU.
Cheers!
Luke KolinSenior Captain, MD-11
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