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Well, it was just announced that the new highly anticipated flight sim will launch August 18th. Most of us thought it would be a few more months, so this comes as something of a surprise. This will be Microsoft's first flight sim update since FSX in 2006.
20 years ago, I was a serious simmer, but my interest waned over the years along with Microsoft's. I'm thinking maybe I'd like to pick it up again with this new release, but my laptop specs fall short. Here are the minimum, recommended, and ideal specs to run the new sim....
Again 20 years ago, I was pretty much a cutting-edge computer guy, but today I'm a dinosaur. Last machine I built was around 2004. If anyone would care to chime in, I'm interested in recommendations for new products meeting the minimum and recommended specs shown in the link. I certainly don't need ideal. Intel/Nvidia only, please. I'd consider either a laptop or desktop, but would lean toward a laptop.
They're listed in the link. My advise would be wait. It remains a pretty terrible time to build. Motherboards are in short supply, power supplies critically short supply, Intel 10500K remains is marked up. New GPIs are going on 3 years old and rumored launches late this year.
If you want to build now, I would go an Intel 10600K or 10700K and GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2060 Super in the recommended range. It's worth it if building to pay the markup for SMT on 10th gen. Get a good, beefy air cooler or AIO. Intel had most of the board manufacturers completely ignore spec this time around. They run extra toasty. Effectively they're overclocked out of the box, but just get a good cooler ala Noctua and they're fine.
Laptops are in a bit of a dark age right now in that specs are pretty useless. An RTX 2080 Super is often slower than a RTX 2070, and not just by a little bit. You have to do model specific homework and look at benchmarks as specs on laptops are effectively meaningless. Thermals matter more than components.
They're listed in the link. My advise would be wait. It remains a pretty terrible time to build. Motherboards are in short supply, power supplies critically short supply, Intel 10500K remains is marked up. New GPIs are going on 3 years old and rumored launches late this year.
If you want to build now, I would go an Intel 10600K or 10700K and GTX 1660 Ti or RTX 2060 Super in the recommended range. It's worth it if building to pay the markup for SMT on 10th gen. Get a good, beefy air cooler or AIO. Intel had most of the board manufacturers completely ignore spec this time around. They run extra toasty. Effectively they're overclocked out of the box, but just get a good cooler ala Noctua and they're fine.
Laptops are in a bit of a dark age right now in that specs are pretty useless. An RTX 2080 Super is often slower than a RTX 2070, and not just by a little bit. You have to do model specific homework and look at benchmarks as specs on laptops are effectively meaningless. Thermals matter more than components.
I’d agree with 10600K. Microcenter has it on sale in store at a good price, not marked up, if OP lives near one. Get a good motherboard and 32GB of DDR-3600 RAM. Around $700 for all 3.
Also agree with a Noctua cooler like a NH-D15. I’ve been replacing my AIO liquid coolers with them over time.
The video card is tricky, as Nvidia will have new ones out soon.
I’d agree with 10600K. Microcenter has it on sale in store at a good price, not marked up, if OP lives near one. Get a good motherboard and 32GB of DDR-3600 RAM. Around $700 for all 3.
Also agree with a Noctua cooler like a NH-D15. I’ve been replacing my AIO liquid coolers with them over time.
The video card is tricky, as Nvidia will have new ones out soon.
I’d probably still wait until after release and consider Ryzen as a CPU option.
Microcenter can be good like that, if near one. OutletPC for 300. Generally I don't buy from third party sellers on Amazon, Newegg or Walmart. One too many experiences waiting on a component. I would if I really needed a 10600K right now. Read in between the lines on that one, I guess. Short of it is the 10600K is mostly not in stock. I would spend the extra hundred and get the 10700K if I needed it now. The other option would be go Ryzen, but AMD board selection right now is not great either. Normally AMD boards being cheaper is a big reason to go with AMD, but it's hard to get good B450 boards and when you can it's often at X570 prices. Heck a lot of the lower end X570 boards you can't get either right now.
Just not a good time to build a computer since everyone else is building computers. Unprecedented demand plus Covid supply disruptions. That's before you even get to the likely new GPU releases and likely Ryzen 4000 launch which would be normal reasons to hold off.
Microcenter can be good like that, if near one. OutletPC for 300. Generally I don't buy from third party sellers on Amazon, Newegg or Walmart. One too many experiences waiting on a component. I would if I really needed a 10600K right now. Read in between the lines on that one, I guess. Short of it is the 10600K is mostly not in stock. I would spend the extra hundred and get the 10700K if I needed it now. The other option would be go Ryzen, but AMD board selection right now is not great either. Normally AMD boards being cheaper is a big reason to go with AMD, but it's hard to get good B450 boards and when you can it's often at X570 prices. Heck a lot of the lower end X570 boards you can't get either right now.
Just not a good time to build a computer since everyone else is building computers. Unprecedented demand plus Covid supply disruptions. That's before you even get to the likely new GPU releases and likely Ryzen 4000 launch which would be normal reasons to hold off.
I wish I had an excuse to upgrade, but with a 4790K overclocked to 4.8, 32GB of Ram, a PCIe SSD and a 1080Ti hybrid for gaming or flight sim it’s probably only 10-20% slower than something brand new. That 4790K is seriously awesome - I bought it years ago from Silicon Lottery and will eventually buy from them again.
I guess I led you to believe I was talking about building with my reference to building years ago. Reading my post again, I can see where you'd assume that. But no, those days are pretty much behind me, I think, for multiple reasons. Of course, I never say never. But that comment was there primarily to indicate that I have a little better understanding of the components and inner working of computers than the average Joe Schmo.
The more I think about it and learn more about how this new sim works, the more doubt creeps in as to whether this would be a worthwhile expense. I have Flight Simulator 2004, after all, and it runs great on my current laptop. It just doesn't look as awesome as the new one - at least from the pictures we see.
But if I were to spring for a new machine, it would most likely be factory assembled and ready to go. So my prime interest would be in specific commercially available models meeting those specs.
I guess I led you to believe I was talking about building with my reference to building years ago. Reading my post again, I can see where you'd assume that. But no, those days are pretty much behind me, I think, for multiple reasons. Of course, I never say never. But that comment was there primarily to indicate that I have a little better understanding of the components and inner working of computers than the average Joe Schmo.
The more I think about it and learn more about how this new sim works, the more doubt creeps in as to whether this would be a worthwhile expense. I have Flight Simulator 2004, after all, and it runs great on my current laptop. It just doesn't look as awesome as the new one - at least from the pictures we see.
But if I were to spring for a new machine, it would most likely be factory assembled and ready to go. So my prime interest would be in specific commercially available models meeting those specs.
I would recommend this Dell XPS 8930. It starts at $599, you can built it up from there. I have the special edition of this. At minimum, I would add the Nvidia GTX 1660 which is what I got. It's a 6GB GPU. That is $200 extra. It has a bunch of other options. You can't go wrong with this as far as quality. It is VR capable too by the way if that matters. Something I have yet to try myself.
I would recommend this Dell XPS 8930. It starts at $599, you can built it up from there. I have the special edition of this. At minimum, I would add the Nvidia GTX 1660 which is what I got. It's a 6GB GPU. That is $200 extra. It has a bunch of other options. You can't go wrong with this as far as quality. It is VR capable too by the way if that matters. Something I have yet to try myself.
A solid choice. Nowadays there is little reason to build your own unless you are a serial upgrader or tinkerer.
Until we get YouTube videos of people doing FS 2020 with midrange hardware (the Alpha test was restricted) I’d recommend waiting a month or 2.
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