re: update to the build
Hi all,
Thanks a lot for all the comments. I really learned a lot and they gave me a lot of directions to do more research and reading. At the moment I have modified my plan a little:
Chassis: Obutto R3volution with buttkicker gamer 2 (At the moment I can't get a response from the brand's distributor in SE Asea so I emailed Obutto directly to try to get an answer)
If I can't get this set-up I will use my home office's L-shape desk for the moment. I really like the versatility of Obutto, and the sim cockpit feeling (never had the space nor budget for one until now).
MB Sabertooth (Checking to see if other boards available or going to be available soon which can handle OC better at similar price)
HDD (No raid just 2x3TB or 2x2TB. I work a lot on video editing, download HD movies, but RAID too complicated for me. I guess I will just backup more often)
SSD vector512 (move back to 265GB to reduce budget.)
VGA GTX780x1 (Will wait for O/C version to arrive Thailand, and use 1 instead of 2 at the start)
P Supply Strikes (need more research to see what is available here)
After research, readings, the above set up looks more realistic to me at the moment.
The biggest investment is a SIMS cockpit. Obutto's product is the only one I found good for three purposes. (SIMS, gaming, some light home-works.)
Will do 27"x3 @ 5760x1080 for sims, and 1920x1200 for FPS games. I do not fancy 3 monitors for gaming, as frame rate drops a lot with 3 monitors at 5760x1080 unless I go SLI but that has its problems. I need to visit the shop and check if I can switch btw 1 to 3 monitors with ease though.
2nd biggest investment is GPU and it can break one's heart. The GPU was a iffy issue but now quite clear & settled. GTX780 is good for the money, $350 less than the $990 Titan at 90% of Titan's performance (crazy NVidia). SLI could be difficult as I am not experienced in that, so going for 1 card in the beginning and overclock it to easily surpass 1 Titan set up. But to be ready for O/C and future SLI I will look for O/C 780 version because they usually come with large dual fans to better keep temperature at control and runs quieter at idle.
I think 256GB is enough for a long time. 1TB just came out at $600 state-side. The price I have to pay for 512GB SSD here is ridiculous.
That's about it. Now it is getting the chassis, and get it shipped to Thailand which will take weeks.
Sam
I don't think anything can run rF2 at 120 FPS right now, but you'll be good with that 3GB GPU, and you should definitely get the bigger PSU.
Thanks for the information. I realized that 120FPS is not realistic in most games, even with 2 GPUs. 80FPS can be achieve-able and I found in anantech mentioning OC'ing monitor to keep the refresh rate V synced at 70 or 80. Need to read more about it.
I don't know about 120frames with triple screen resolution. But i run 1080p with an old phenomx4 @ 3.6ghz and a gtx670, I get 120fps half of the time and min no less than 60 apart from the grid, this is with most things on full, shadows high, shadow blur fast, no enviro reflections, road reflections low. So my setup is not the greatest but it gives enough, Im sure you could find the right compromise on settings to get 120fps regularly enough.
Thanks for the comment after research I have reduced my target to 60-80fps 3 monitors for sims, and 60-80fps+ at full setting for 1 monitor FPS gaming.
You'd be surprised at how much AA I can get away with on a GTX 560 SE, I set it at 8x and get around 50 to 60 FPS with decent settings. Anything less than that and the effect is barely noticeable.
I have never tried triple screen, so it is hard for me to guess, but with the power you'll be packing, you'll have a very fluid game by simply lowering the most demanding effects if necessary. I'm sure there are topics about triple screen setups around here to help you guess. Keep in mind that rF2 is hard to predict and a bit janky. Some people have a much better PC than me and still get a very bad frame rate when they turn on the mirrors, but it barely bothers my PC. Also, they might have one setting somewhere that totally destroys their frame rate and they don't know about it.
What I'm saying is that it looks like your PC will be fine for maxing almost everything and easily getting way above 60 FPS, but you might have to do some troubleshooting. No one knows in advance, that's just how rF2 is.
You could try to look for threads that discuss CPU and GPU usage to see if certain models are problematic for whatever reason. Logic doesn't always work for rF2, at least not yet.
Weird trees and average track objects aside, I have never seen a sim look prettier than having the sun bathe the cockpit of the Maserati as this. You can't tell much from the screenshot, so you'll just have to believe me. ;P
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And make sure you follow the experts' advice for the PSU. With the Asian heat, these two GPUs and any possible overclock, I think you'll need the extra power. Even a good PSU will deteriorate over time, and that's why I had to replace a 600W OCZ with a 580W brand new PSU just to finish the school year. I imagine a lower tier unit would deteriorate faster and perhaps cause problems before you realize it. I'll keep my cheaper X-Supply for now, but if I were building a PC from scratch, I would get quality without a doubt. If need be, just get a smaller SSD instead and spend more on the PSU.
What will be the wheel and shifter?
I am learning this idea that fps in flight and racing sims (especially in this case FlightSimX & rfactor2) is not 'totally' directly dependant on PC's computing power. It has a lot to do with tweaks here and there, settings, mods, etc. Thanks for pointing out, I think it can be a slow progress to learn but worth it if I can have 80-100fps racing at Silverstone
Thanks for the photos of the Maserati cup race (cup race I think?)
Will definitely look into PSU, am backing off from 512GB SSD.
My wheel is G27. I usually turn force feedback off because it is not realistic compare to real race car driving.
That MSI GTX780 with big fans is definitely what I need...
One of the things to look at in power supplies is the number of 12V power rails, the more the better in most cases. ......
I also see you are planning on overclocking the system and using water cooling. What do you plan on using to get the heat out of the room once you have it away from the CPU/GPU? .....
The CPU you have selected is more than enough for gaming and likely overkill, especially when overclocking. For a gaming rig you really don't need to get anything higher than the i5 as the system won't perform very much better with an i7 and the cost difference is very noticeable. As for the SSD, have you looked at the OCZ Vertex 4 drives? If I were you I would also consider looking into learning about ram drives and how best to utilize them. .....
That should get you to thinking and investigating more.
Hope it all works out well for you.
Thanks a lot and really got me into thinking, my 38 years old brain is not like 18 yrs old no more
Apparently I know nothing about PSU. I will just go pick up a reliable brand name with enough Watts.
I always game in an air-conditioned room now. I found out the hard way years ago when my pre-CORE era CPU overheated and fused to one useless block even with a giant heatsink and blower. Gaming with an OC PC in south-east Asia's hot temperature gives one hot burning lower legs. And 10 degrees Celcius ambient temperature translates to multiple times core temperature.
I know nothing about ram drives but I am backing from 512GB to 256GB SSD. I need i7 for multi-tasking video editing as I will also use this computer heavily for some leisure work. (I forgot to specify this in the first post
Nice, with monitors you use? tv? monitor? led? lcd?
A 600 w good brand PSU is the same as 1000 w cheap PSU.
About the PSU, more important that the number of w is the brand, one good is Thermaltake or Coolermaster.
I will not use TV. Most likely Samsung led monitors. For me the difficult part decide over 24" or 27", and I will not go over 1080. Yes that PSU thing.... keep me thinking...
That will be a nice computer...
Dont skimp on case or PSU
To me, with that budget, after all the research I did... I would go with a 690 and max out the cpu and mobo...
and upgrade the psu and case. There is some really good advice in this thread. I love my cosmos 2
I also went with two smaller SSDs than one big one and mostly for reinstalling the os.
Good Luck... You will definately enjoy it once you get it... Are you building it?
You should be right in your target FPS in most cases. some small adjustments will keep it there.
Everywhere but Silverstone ... silverstone is a beast right now
No I will not skimp on PSU, after so many advices.
At the moment I am kind of decided on 780 OC edition for the already big dual fans straight from factory. Once the system is up and running I will think about if it is necessary to add another 780 and deal with the SLI issue.
What do you mean by two smaller SSDs one for reinstalling OS? Do you mean that I should keep windows in one SSD, and install games in another? I noted somewhere that I should install add-ons, mods in traditional drive.
Locals will build it. In Thailand it is usually select parts, shops will build PC for free. Parts come with 1 year warrantee.
Yes lots of useful information here. Couldn't have gotten this far by myself at all. Thanks for the SIM community.
Sam
