Building a new flight sim PC

[SaturnSix]

My 6-year-old gaming laptop is on its last legs and has started to give me grief – most annoyingly regular USB disconnects, which is less than helpful when in the flare in a gusty crosswind! Besides, the hardware is barely up to the task of running flight sims these days and is borderline minimum spec for MSFS. This is also quite frustrating with the amount of time spent at home during the pandemic.

So I bit the bullet and decided to build a new PC optimised for flight simulation. This will be a mid-to-high end build, so balancing performance within my budget will be key. I thought I would share the experience with the community here, hopefully it helps anyone in the market for a new PC!

For more mainstream games (like Assassins Creed, Three Kingdoms: Total War and F1 2020) there are standard benchmark tests available for various hardware configurations. It is straightforward to select hardware in these cases, given the large number of test results freely available online. In contrast, there aren’t really any standard benchmark tests for flight simulation so hardware choice is more difficult - other than a strong bias (though largely well-founded) within the community towards buying the most powerful Intel and Nvidia hardware money can buy. That said, there is lots of technical advice regarding settings to optimise performance (graphic settings, frame rate limits, refresh rates, anti-aliasing, affinity masks…), which I'm sure most of us have turned to at some point, especially those with less capable hardware.

Over the next few weeks, I will try to detail the entire build process including selecting hardware, building and testing, overclocking, and flight sim performance. I intend to show both typical synthetic benchmark results (like Cinebench and 3DMark) to give a repeatable measure of system performance, but will also show some indicative performance results for flight sims with metrics like frame rate, frame time, CPU usage, GPU usage and thermals. I’ll test sims with stock configuration, as well as when running a lot of addons (after all, flying A2A planes around detailed scenery and in challenging weather is the whole point!)

There are plenty of videos showing different aspects of this process - for example, a lot of gaming PC build guides, hardware reviews and benchmarks, and 'fully loaded' videos showing flight sim performance with various addons running. I haven't seen much that brings this all together though, so hopefully at least some people find this useful.

Looking forward to sharing and discussing with the community!

[SaturnSix]

Part Selection

A lot of research went in to selecting parts – some great technical reviews I referred to heavily include those from Hardware Unboxed and Gamers Nexus, highly recommended! Note that gaming benchmarks must be considered with the proviso that flight sims are almost never the subject of benchmark testing. This is particularly true of P3D, which has historically heavily relied on single-thread CPU performance (though V5 seems to make better use of the GPU from what I have seen). I am optimistic that the new Microsoft offering will be better able to take advantage of modern CPU and GPU technology though.

My goal is to build a PC primarily optimised for flight sims (P3D, MSFS and DCS), but also capable of occasional productivity tasks including compiling code and video editing. I want to be capable of running at 1440p resolution, with the option for VR down the track too. My budget allows for a mid-to-high end build, so the parts I select need to offer good price-to-performance - no 2080 Ti in this build! That said, my build will get close to the ideal MSFS specification.

I’ll go through my justification for the individual parts in the next post. The tl;dr version of the spec is (ignoring brand where it isn’t really relevant):

• CPU: Intel i5 10600K

• GPU: GeForce RTX 2070 Super

• MOBO: Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC

• RAM: 16 GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200 MHz CL 16

• Storage: 1 TB M.2 NVMe

• CPU Cooler: 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler

• PSU: 80+ Gold 750W Modular

• Case: Phanteks P300A Mid-Tower ATX

A PC Part Picker list summarising the build is available here - https://pcpartpicker.com/list/QhMG8M. At time of writing this build cost me about $2600 AUD (or $1500 USD), though scarcity of some parts is driving some prices up (especially CPUs and power supplies).

Incidentally, my choices happen to be largely equivalent to the Jetline Systems Gravity GT2 (https://jetlinesystems.com/product/gravity-gt2/), which is a purpose built flight sim machine. I didn’t set out to replicate that specification, but it is reassuring to see that!

[SaturnSix]

Part Selection - Detailed

As mentioned in the previous post, I went through a long process to choose parts for this build. I have now purchased all the parts. My justification for each choice is detailed below. I choose parts in (roughly) the order presented.

CPU: Intel i5 10600K
High single-core performance (read: high clock speed) is still king for gaming, and especially so for the poorly optimised P3D. The 6-core, 12 thread Intel i5 10600K is the best of the latest Intel line-up for gaming at a reasonable price. As a K variant it is unlocked for overclocking, allowing the clock speed to match the stock 10900K without too much effort.

There is a price premium on this CPU compared to the AMD equivalent, the Ryzen 5 3600. The AMD offering is an excellent processor that is easily better value as a general purpose processor, and it outperforms the 10600K for productivity work due to its higher core count. However, the single core performance lags behind the 10600K, which is why I opted to go Intel.

Unfortunately, the 10600K is pretty hard to find in stock at the moment. Intel is struggling to match AMD at present and this seems like it will get worse before it gets better. I believe that AMD is well worth considering for the excellent all-round performance and value it offers.

GPU: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 Super Gaming OC 3X
This was a much more difficult choice then the CPU, made harder by the fact that the 3000-series Nvidia and Big Navi Radeon cards are just around the corner. But there is always some new tech just about to come out, and I am satisfied that this card will give me the performance I need at an acceptable price. The RTX 2080 Super or 2080 Ti are clearly more powerful options, but I can’t justify the (far) higher cost associated with these cards.

The competing option is the Radeon 5700XT. The RTX 2070 Super is shown in most gaming benchmarks to outperform the 5700XT, but it also comes with a hefty price premium to get that performance gain. In the end I choose the 2070 Super because I found a great price for this particular Gigabyte version of the card, and because there is a strong bias towards Nvidia cards in the flight sim community (whether that is still warranted or not is debatable, but there is certainly more advice to be had on Nvidia settings on flight sim forums). For a new build, I think either GPU option is a good match for this CPU. If you are upgrading a PC rather than building from scratch, I’d suggest holding out until the new cards are released by both Nvidia and AMD.

This Gigabyte variant is pre-overclocked, with the core clock set to 1815 MHz (the reference core clock speed of 1770 MHz). It has three fans for cooling, which many other 2070 Super variants also have - cheaper ones have 2 fans only. With this extra cooling capability, I may look at overclocking this a bit further, but not yet decided on that.

Motherboard: Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC
To overclock the 10600K CPU, a motherboard for the new Z490 chipset is required. There are lots of options available. My two key criteria for a board was good VRM management (sufficient power and heat management for overclocking) and a good number for USB ports for the many peripherals I use (yoke, throttle quadrant, rudder pedals, a separate HOTAS setup, TrackIR, keyboard, mouse, and more!). The first criteria is more important than the second – it is easy to add a USB expansion card or hub, but I’d prefer not to.

The Gigabyte board I have chosen meets before criteria admirably. It has a great VRM solution and is a good overclocker, though equivalent MSI and Asus are too. The main point of differentiation is that this board has 10 USB ports on the IO panel, along with headers on the board for front panel ports – brilliant!

RAM: G. Skill Trident Z RGB 16 GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200 MHz CL16
A straightforward choice. DDR4 3200 MHz memory seems to be the sweet spot for performance. While I chose G. Skill, there are plenty of equally good manufacturers to choose from. I did make a compromise here to fit the 2070 Super into my budget – dropping from 32GB to 16GB. This is adequate for now, but I do intend to add another 16GB in the remaining slots on the motherboard later.

SSD: ADATA XPG8200 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVMe
This is a high-performing storage option that promising really fast load times. That said, NVMe certainly isn’t necessary for high performance flight sim – I believe a standard 2.5 inch SSD would be more than sufficient. My rationale for choosing this drive was more directed towards large file handling associated with working with 4K video. I also made a compromise here by not including a second storage device (either a high-capacity SATA SSD or a second M.2 SSD), again to accommodate the 2070 Super. I am happy 1 TB will suffice for now though, as adding storage is another easy upgrade when finances allow. Given the price of SSDs these days, I don’t see any reason to use a mechanical hard drive.

CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X53 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler
With overclocking in mind, a good all-in-one liquid cooling option makes sense. That said, a high-performance air cooling option like those offered by Noctua are also a reasonable choice. My choice here is more driven by aesthetics – the compact liquid cooler (especially the attractive NZXT design) makes things look nicer in the case than a big blocky air cooling option, in my opinion.

Power Supply: NZXT C 750 Gold 80+ 750W Fully Modular
A high-efficiency PSU is a must, and 750W should be enough for this build after moderate overclocking. This model wasn’t my first choice (I’d have preferred a Corsair or Seasonic model), but it is hard to find PSUs in stock anywhere at the moment. Despite that, the NZXT model is manufactured by Seasonic and includes the same 10 year warranty, so I am happy with it.

Case: Phanteks Eclipse P300A Mesh ATX Mid Tower
The case is largely an aesthetic choice in general, but I also want a case that offers excellent air flow and is easy to build in. Cases with a full mesh front panel very much the current trend with outstanding thermal performance. This P300A is quite compact, which suits what I want perfectly. The standard P300A only includes one fan, which isn’t enough for a high-end build. However, my AIO includes two fans for the radiator, so I should have cooling covered!

[dvm]

looks good and your hardware choices seem to be near or at the sweet spot. You can easily spend twice as much money on a PC with only a slight performance advantage by just buying the most expensive part. Have you considered putting your operating system on a it's own smaller SSD and the rest on the ADATA XPG8200 Pro 1 TB ? Your choice of a Gigabyte MB is a good one. Their heavier copper traces and quality capacitors are a rel asset for longevity. I started using Gigabyte boards about 15 years ago after a relatively new Asus board starting giving me problems and I am sure it was because of a faulty capacitor. Replaced it with a Gigabyte MB and no problems, that PC has since been retired. My everyday PC my former FS rig is in use everyday without issue (10+ years) . I also use Gigabyte GPUs. Good luck on your new build !

[Skycat]

I first started to upgrade current PC back in April then later I decided to build my own PC from scratch. Researching parts gave me something to do while teleworking. I think everybody had the same idea because parts were expensive and some were hard to find because of the pandemic. All my essential parts have arrived and I'll probably assemble on a rainy day or after summer:

$148.89 ....... Fractal Design Meshify S2 Full-Tower Case (black)
$196.55 ....... MSI MPG Z390M Gaming Edge AC LGA1151 Micro ATX Z390 Gaming Motherboard
$ 79.90 ....... Noctua NH-D15S Premim Dual-Tower CPU Cooler with NF-A15 PMW 140mm Fan
$389.99 ....... Intel Core i7 - 9700K CPU processor 3.6GHz Turbo boost to 4.9GHz.
$134.99 ....... G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32 GB (4x8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3600
$ 99.99 ....... Western Digital Black SN750 NVMe M.2 2280 500GB PCI-Express 3.0 NAND SSD
$344.95 ....... EVGA Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti FTW video card (used, eBay, City Recycle, Portland OR)
$119.99 ........ Seasonic Focus GX-750, 80 plus Gold 750W, Fully Modular, Hybrid Fan PSU

[Hobart Escin]

I assume you're going to be overclocking since you're using a watercooling system? I'm also upgrading my hardware soon (I can't even boot up P3Dv5, lol). I'd like to be able to run FS2020, DCS World, and P3Dv5 at good framerates. However, if parts are in short supply and retailers start charging obscene prices, I'll hold off for a while.

[SaturnSix]

looks good and your hardware choices seem to be near or at the sweet spot. You can easily spend twice as much money on a PC with only a slight performance advantage by just buying the most expensive part. Have you considered putting your operating system on a it's own smaller SSD and the rest on the ADATA XPG8200 Pro 1 TB ? Your choice of a Gigabyte MB is a good one. Their heavier copper traces and quality capacitors are a rel asset for longevity. I started using Gigabyte boards about 15 years ago after a relatively new Asus board starting giving me problems and I am sure it was because of a faulty capacitor. Replaced it with a Gigabyte MB and no problems, that PC has since been retired. My everyday PC my former FS rig is in use everyday without issue (10+ years) . I also use Gigabyte GPUs. Good luck on your new build !

Thanks! Reassuring to get some feedback on part selection.

I had thought about adding another SSD for the OS (my current laptop is set up that way, with an SSD for the Windows and a larger mechanical HDD for everything else), but budget wouldn't quite extend that far just yet. I may well add another drive in the near future for that purpose, though it will be a pain to set up Windows again. In the mean time I do intend to keep my other big installs like P3D separate from the default Program Files directory to make such a transition easier. Maybe worth adding a partition to the current SSD in anticipation of that move?

[SaturnSix]

I assume you're going to be overclocking since you're using a watercooling system?

Yes, overclocking is the aim. Nothing too extreme though.

Good luck with your own build when the time comes!

[SaturnSix]

Skycat - nice looking spec there. Amazing how well some of the better graphics cards hold their price! That Fractal case looks amazing too.

Are you planning on bring across an SSD or HDD from your current PC? In my experience 500 TB will run out pretty quickly if you plan on running P3D, DCS and the new MSFS all at once, especially if you have a few big addons like Orbx regions. I am adding 1 TB to my build and still feel I will be adding more later on!

[dvm]

looks good and your hardware choices seem to be near or at the sweet spot. You can easily spend twice as much money on a PC with only a slight performance advantage by just buying the most expensive part. Have you considered putting your operating system on a it's own smaller SSD and the rest on the ADATA XPG8200 Pro 1 TB ? Your choice of a Gigabyte MB is a good one. Their heavier copper traces and quality capacitors are a rel asset for longevity. I started using Gigabyte boards about 15 years ago after a relatively new Asus board starting giving me problems and I am sure it was because of a faulty capacitor. Replaced it with a Gigabyte MB and no problems, that PC has since been retired. My everyday PC my former FS rig is in use everyday without issue (10+ years) . I also use Gigabyte GPUs. Good luck on your new build !

Thanks! Reassuring to get some feedback on part selection.

I had thought about adding another SSD for the OS (my current laptop is set up that way, with an SSD for the Windows and a larger mechanical HDD for everything else), but budget wouldn't quite extend that far just yet. I may well add another drive in the near future for that purpose, though it will be a pain to set up Windows again. In the mean time I do intend to keep my other big installs like P3D separate from the default Program Files directory to make such a transition easier. Maybe worth adding a partition to the current SSD in anticipation of that move?

You can buy a 128GB SSD for $20 or a 256 for less than $40.
https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=100011693 ... 2-5-Inch_1

[Skycat]

My plan is to get the build up and running and then add an SSD or two. And/or maybe a 1TB or 2TB NVME.

[SaturnSix]

Build update: all parts have safely arrived, and I have assembled the system and am up and running with Windows. All good so far! The case was quite nice to build in, with good cable management. I haven't yet done much to configure the PC, other than updating drivers and the like. The only real change to hardware settings has been to enable the maximum performance setting for power management in the NVIDIA Control Panel. A few pictures with the panels off and in its new home (along with a new resident) below



As a baseline, I ran Cinebench R20, 3DMark Time Spy (DX12) and 3DMark Fire Strike (DX11) benchmarks to see how the new PC in stock configuration compared to my old laptop. This was quite revealing. CPU performance was roughly doubled with my new PC, while graphics performance improved by about 900% for DX11 and over 1300% for DX12! The laptop CPU has held up OK (which is probably why I have got by in P3D for so long), but the old graphics card is clearly not up to the task of modern gaming (both in terms of memory and clock speed). It will be interesting to see how the benchmarks improve with performance improvements including overclocking.

I did some quick thermal testing on the case as well, to see how toasty everything got under load in this base configuration. Using K-type temperature probes, I measured ambient temperature at the front panel and the temperature inside the case near the rear exhaust fan. I set all fans to run at maximum speed for maximum cooling. I then loaded up the CPU and GPU by running Prime95 and Unigine Heaven simultaneously until temperatures (and the liquid in the CPU cooler) reached equilibrium. With this sustained 100% load, I saw the CPU reach 68 degrees and the GPU reach 64 degrees, with the case reaching 13 degrees over ambient temperature. The GPU doesn't even really ramp up the fans until 65 degrees. There is a lot of headroom for overclocking here! Picture of the test setup below.



Speaking of which, I am yet to touch any settings for overclocking - including XMP, so my RAM is still running at 2133 MHz rather than the 3200 MHz on the label (Technically, enabling XMP to get the advertised speed on the RAM is a memory overclock - which (officialy anyway) voids the CPU warranty with Intel...). In preparation for overclocking I purchased the Performance Tuning Protection Plan from Intel - for about $20, they will replace my CPU if I happen to cook it while overclocking, which is good for peace of mind.

[SaturnSix]

Time for an update on progress with my PC build, including how it performs with flight simulators.

First, I have made 2 changes since I originally posted: After seeing memory utilisation in DCS World testing, I opted to upgrade to 32 GB RAM sooner rather than later (another identical 2x8GB set). I am very happy I did – MSFS is hungry for memory, as I’ll show later. I also found a great deal on a 1 TB Crucial SSD, which has bumped my overall storage to 2 TB. Specs are now:

• CPU: Intel i5 10600K
• GPU: GeForce RTX 2070 Super (Gigabyte Gaming OC 3X)
• MOBO: Gigabyte Z490 Aorus Elite AC
• RAM: 32 GB (4x8GB) DDR4 3200 MHz CL 16 (G Skill Trident Z)
• Storage: 1 TB M.2 NVMe (ADATA), 1 TB SSD (Crucial)
• CPU Cooler: 240mm AIO Liquid Cooler (NZXT Kraken X53)
• PSU: 80+ Gold 750W Modular (NZXT)
• Case: Phanteks P300A Mid-Tower ATX

The PC happens to have a fair sprinkling of RGB lighting inside. Given it is a flight sim rig, I decided to go with a sky theme.



Overclocking

I spent a significant period of time overclocking this system – that can be a serious rabbit hole to go down as one tries to squeeze more performance out! Serendipitously, renowned overclocker Buildzoid (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrwObT ... O7Fgk-FXHQ) recently posted a series of videos detailing his approach to overclocking an i10700K with a Gigabyte Z490 Master motherboard – a very similar configuration to what I have.

I eventually achieved the following overclock on my system:

• CPU: All core 4.9 GHz (2 cores boosting to 5.0 GHz), cache 4.6 GHz
• GPU: Clock +130 MHz, memory +1000 MHz
• RAM: XMP profile (3200 MHz, CL 16)

The CPU was easily the most work. I did try enabling MCE on my motherboard (automatically overclocks all cores to 4.8 GHz), but this used a high voltage that produced far too much heat. I was much happier with the results from my manual overclocking. The overclock achieved suggests I have a better-than-average CPU (as compared to identical CPUs sold by Silicon Lottery). Note I have no AVX offset. Stability was demonstrated using Linpack Xtreme and Prime 95 small FFTs. Peak temperatures under these (abusive) loads was 90 degrees.

A quirk of the Gigabyte motherboard is that by default there are no timeout limits for CPU power enabled by default. As a result, the stock performance is to run at the all-core boost speed of 4.5 GHz permanently, rather than dropping to 4.1 GHz after 56 seconds (as per the Intel spec) – this could be considered an out-of-the-box overclock. Other motherboard manufacturers have different settings, but all are easy enough to change in BIOS. Something to bear in mind!
The GPU overclock was much easier to achieve, using MSI Afterburner. NVidia cards are quite restrictive on how far they can be overclocked. In this case, performance is limited by the maximum power draw of the card. Stability was demonstrated using the Unigine Heaven and FurMark Kombustor stress tests. It also passed all graphics benchmark tests.

The memory overclock isn’t particularly interesting – I enabled the standard XMP profile, which allowed me to achieve the rated spec (up from the Intel default of 2133 MHz) for my memory without any effort.

I ran a long-term stability test of the fully overclocked system, using Linpack Xtreme with the 11 GB test (to stress both CPU and memory) and FurMark Kombuster at the same time. Peak CPU temperature was again 90 degrees, peak GPU temperature 67 temperatures, with ambient temperature 20 degrees. I do not expect to see temperatures this high under flight simulation loads.

Overclocking Benchmarks

I used a few of the industry standard benchmarks to measure the performance gains with this overclock. In all cases, I performed the benchmark three times and took the average result. I used Cinebench R20 to measure CPU performance, 3DMark Fire Strike to measure DX11 gaming performance, and 3DMark Time Spy to measure DX12 gaming performance.

• Cinebench R20 All Core: Stock 3576, Overclocked 3913 (gain 9.4%)

• Cinebench R20 Single Core: Stock 491, Overclocked 517 (gain 5.3%)

• Fire Strike (DX11): Stock 20519, Overclocked 23551 (gain 14.8%)

• Time Spy (DX12): Stock 9428, Overclocked 10712 (gain 13.6%)

My overclock from 4.5 to 4.9 GHz all core is about a 9% increase, and the Cinebench all-core gain shows this scaling. The single core improvement is slightly better than half that – an expected result with hyperthreading enabled. The gaming synthetic benchmarks test the overall overclock scenario. Both show an improvement of about 14%. My incremental testing showed that each element of the overclock (CPU all core and cache, XMP, and GPU) all contributed to this.

The (far more relevant) flight sim test results will follow - lots to write up there!