Upgrade

[awdrgyjo]

Over two and a half years ago I spent a long weekend on this forum asking advice on how to order a machine that would run just DCS, the brief was around the £1500 mark [excluding monitor] just to run warthog. Everyone was very patient, and kind, with special thanks to Ethereal In, and I ordered the machine, and everything was fine.

 

Technology has moved on, and I wondered if you could advise me on an upgrade, so everything runs on max, and bearing in mind the new scenery may be on the way, its the same brief as before, DCS world only, no other flight sims or games, and as you may know, I'm not very computer savvy, look forward from hearing from you, and thanks again.

 

intel Core i7-2600k Quad Core [3.4GHz 8MB Cache] +HD Graphics

ASUS P8Z68-v PRO: USB 3.0 SATA 6.oGB/s NVIDIA SLI ATI CrossfireX

8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL- DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P. [2x 4GB KIT]

1.5 GB NVIDIA GEOFORCE GTX 580- 2 DVI HDMI, DP-3D Vision Ready

1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB CACHE [7200rpm]

INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER [XD MS CF] 1x USB 2.0 PORT

CORSAIR 750W TX SREIES [TX750] 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU

TITAN FENFIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER

windows 7 home premium 64 BIT

[sobek]

In other departments, you are still pretty hot, the newer CPU generations do not actually offer that much of a performance increase to warrant a new CPU + mainboard. Only things you could sensibly improve upon are GPU and possibly an SSD.

[joey45]

^ Yup. get an SSD and probably another 8 gigs of RAM.

 

You might want to upgrade your GPU.

[cichlidfan]

I am running DCS on a similar system but I am running SSDs for everything but miscellaneous data. I recently upgraded from a Zotac GTX580 to an ASUS GTX780 and am quite happy with the upgrade.

 

So, as said above, GPU & SSD. Another 8GB won't hurt since it's relatively cheap (assuming you have slots available and don't have to swap it all) but I doubt it will get you much in the way of noticeable improvement.

[Tailhook]

A newer video card. I recommend a GTX770 or better, or HD7970 or better.

[Devrim]

I don't think he needs a newer graphics card, especially if current card has 1½Gb vRAM. At least it's not urgent to me.

 

But I agree about SSD. I have similar system any everything is OK with last version of DCS (v1.2.6u3). In my opinion, the data transfer (with 6GB/s) must have been sufficient, but unfortunately we need SSD devices. That doesn't make sense.

[Rhinox]

I don't think he needs a newer graphics card, especially if current card has 1½Gb vRAM. At least it's not urgent to me...

I think he needs new GFX especially because his current one (GTX580) has only 1.5GRAM. He wants to run everything on max, so he will sure run out of GFX-memory. Moreover, with "new" models on market and prices low as never, I think this is the time to buy new GFX...

[Rangi]

See if you can find someone to overclock that 2600k for you, that is what will make the most difference with the current graphics engine. What will be the best with EDGE no one knows and I would advise to wait until its out before upgrading....

[Abburo]

With the configuration here in my signature I am curently running DCS maxed out, mod-ed and visibility range also moded to "extreme" at 1080p.

I never saw my FPS dropping below 20 and normal running is somewhere arround 30-40 FPS even higher in some conditions. Of course there can be more tunings to be done, but i like too much as it is right now. I am also expecting an increased performance in EDGE.

The Nvidia external tuning is also set to "quality". Changing that setting to "Performance" give me a 50% performance boost, but the price is obviously lower image quality.

Both GPU's are running at their max speed all the time.

[awdrgyjo]

Would an SSD replace my existing drive, or could I add it to my computer, and, could you recommend one, more for speed than storage, thanks for all the feedback.

[cichlidfan]

An SSD can be added just like a regular HDD. From a physical standpoint you connect them the same way.

 

As for recommendations I will refer you to the October SSD review from Tom's Hardware as the answer to your question changes from time to time.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

[awdrgyjo]

An SSD can be added just like a regular HDD. From a physical standpoint you connect them the same way.

 

As for recommendations I will refer you to the October SSD review from Tom's Hardware as the answer to your question changes from time to time.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

 

thank you, the site is down at the moment.

[cichlidfan]

Sorry about that, it was up a minute ago!

[awdrgyjo]

As already mentioned, I only use the computer for DCS world, and my current drive is only about 25% full, so, what size would You recommend for the SSD?

[cichlidfan]

DCS currently will fit on any SSD out there. Personally, I would buy one large enough to hold both your OS and DCS, even if you don't plan on putting the OS on it right away, which is quite doable on something as small as a 120GB.

[awdrgyjo]

DCS currently will fit on any SSD out there. Personally, I would buy one large enough to hold both your OS and DCS, even if you don't plan on putting the OS on it right away, which is quite doable on something as small as a 120GB.

 

Thanks for your help, I have seen a recommendation on Tomshardware its 256GB, so I take it that will be plenty, also going to throw in 8GB of RAM, as already suggested.

[awdrgyjo]

Does the RAM need to be compatible with the existing one, and as far as the SSD is concerned, do I need 7mm, or 7mm kit, thanks again.