I just wanted to say how happy I am...

[eracer1111]

With finally getting my new PC put together and (finally) being able to truly enjoy playing DCS.

I took a long hiatus from the game because it was just too frustrating to try to play on my laptop.  It's a decent enough machine, but I knew I wanted more - much more.  So I spent the last year gathering parts for my new build.  I got it assembled and moved DCS over, and started playing again.  What a colossal improvement.  I was getting 20-30 fps on medium-low settings with the laptop, and now I'm getting 120-140 fps on High, running at 2560x1440P.  The game looks beautiful, and it's got me inspired to start spending my time learning to fly, instead of just watching TV.  I decided to set my GPU to 144Hz, turned vSync on in my monitor, and turned vSync on in DCS as well.

Moving DCS was a breeze.  Skatezilla's Updater helped, for sure.  I'm on 2.8, and everything is stable, with all my modules intact.

As a side note, I also have MSFS 2020 installed, and man oh man is that a gorgeous game.  Ultra settings, and I'm getting 120 fps pretty consistently.

Components:
Corsair 5000X RGB (I LOVE this case.)
ASUS Tuf Gaming VZ27W (144Hz w/vSync)
EVGA Supernova G6 850W Gold (Total system is drawing around 620W at full load.  Right where I want to be for this power supply.)
MSI B550-A Pro
Fenvi FV-AX3000 WiFi6/Bluetooth PCIe card.
AMD 5800X Mild OC to 4200MHz (I bought it a month before the X3D came out.)
EVGA RTX 3090 Ti FTW3 24GB (when the prices dropped a month ago, I couldn't resist.)
HP V10 32GB (2x16GB) CAS14 (XPD running at 3600MHz)
Sabrent Rocket 500GB PCIe M.2 Gen4
SK Hynix Gold 2TB PCIe M.2 Gen3
Corsair Hydro XD5 pump/reservoir
EKWB CPU block (I may water-cool the GPU in the future, so I decided to build an open loop instead of getting an AIO.
XSPC TX240mm Ultra-Thin Radiator.
10 case fans (6 RGB / 4 non-RGB)

So far, I've very happy with the thermal performance.  I'm still tweaking the fan profiles, but when running these sims I'm seeing good numbers:
CPU maxes out around 55°C, which is right in the sweet spot for this processor.
GPU maxes out around 60°C, which is well within its air-cooled performance envelope.

Case ambient temp is holding right around 25-35°C.  Not too bad, overall, what with that GPU furnace in there.  The ultra-thin radiator seems to be hitting above its pay grade as well.

I'm loving the fast load times I'm getting now.  The OS is on the smaller M.2 drive, and all game files are on the bigger M.2 drive.

All told, including tax and shipping, I've spent about $3,400.  I'd budgeted $2,500 so I'm just a l-i-t-t-l-e bit over budget. 

Next stop..... VR!

Edited December 10, 2022 by eracer1111