New rig recommendations for dcs a10

[luckyluca]

Hello,

 

After years of simming on a laptop I feel the time is ripe to switch back to desktop simming (albeit in the small form of a shoebox computer for space reasons).

 

I'm customizing specs and spent a lot of time surfing to come up with the best GPU in terms of speed and price.

I'd rather try an ATI card as drivers are much better on windows7 and will allow to run other old sims such as freefalcon (whereas new nvidia cards won't).

So I'm very much more biased torwards ati.

 

Now, I could choose between the 58* 59* 68* and 69* cards and laid my eyes on the ATI 6950 2Gb. I also understand the price difference between the 6870 and 6950 is not much.

 

Regarding CPU for almost the same price I can get the i7 2600, is it better than the i5 2500 for a10?

 

 

I havent' purchased a10 just yet so it is really difficult to build a new gaming rig blindfolded. Any recommendations?

 

 

p.p.s.

the system I'm planning to build is a

micro itx asus board

i7 2600

8Gb dual 1300mhz

velociraptor 10k 600gb (hopefully fast enough with my 120Gb plus of photoreal sceneries)

ati 6950

onboard soundcard (yeah I know..)

 

Thanks

Luca

[sweinhart3]

i5 chips are a slightly stripped down version of the i7 so they can be sold cheaper and to more people. Yes i7 2600 is better (faster speed and more cache.) Someone else will have to tell you about ATI. I wont touch them with a 10ft pole because in my experience, their drivers plain suck. But other people like them so Im not gonna say they are bad.

[luckyluca]

Thanks,

 

I'm thinking of buying a powerful shoebox computer (mini-itx), yet i7 2600, late ati card and 8Gb.. however it seems custom shops are still busy with their christmas backlog orders so no chances of getting mine anytime soon..