father built a new rig!

[Irish_PXzyan]

Hey guys!

My father is a HUGE flight sim fan and I bought him the latest flight sim last year for his birthday! but he coudl not play it on his old rig!!

finaly..after a year of patience! he finaly bought his new rig piece by piece!

I have to say..his rig is looking pretty! he bought a seethrough case which looks decent enough.
He has been buying bit before Xmas and has it placed on his table in the living room! he loves to look at it when he gets up :wtf:
He is just waiting now on my brothers old CPU " E4300 1.8Ghz "

He never came to me for advice on hardware! he really should have...he bought an 8500GT 256mb :shadedshu
Will this GFX card be able to run the latest flight sim game? I fear for his life! this rig is only for flight sim! I fear it will lag!

From what I can remmember..his rig contains:

CPU: Intel core 2 duo E4300 1.8Ghz
MOBO: no idea...but it was 28 euro..and it was on display...no idea why he bought it...
RAM 2x1gig Crucial Tracer BallistiX PC5300 DDR2
PSU: ive no idea..but its 400WATT
GFX: Point of view GeForce 8500GT 256mb DDR2

Its more of a budget build..but he said he will be buying a more expensive GFX card in the next few months! so....will this kind of rig be capable of running his long awaited game?

[pcgolfer85]

It will definitely lag. Is there a way he can return that card?

[Irish_PXzyan]

I dont think so!

When I went to his house and saw this little skinny card stuck in there I tryed my best to hold in the....oh god...what have you done face :p

iam afriad he is stuck with it for now!

Will it run flight sim at least on medium?

[a111087]

video card is sure slow, for good graph he will need 8800 and may be a little oc to CPU...
my 7600gt run on medium, but it wasn't that smooth

[Irish_PXzyan]

damn he will not be pleased! I guess I will have to tell him to buy a new GFX card sooner rather than later :p

[ktr]

my dualies 7600gt does FSX fairly max out at 1440, but i cannot turn up the density of props and stuff (that murders performance).

[Irish_PXzyan]

ahhh so the 8500GT might be capable of medium! thats not os bad if it does.

[ktr]

Hopefully he is not running Vista.

[rampage]

yes it will run slow..... in most things.....if he gets a new vid card soon, he will also need another power supply, it sounds like he has a generic 400w psu...

[trog100]

he built the wrong rig dude.. kinda hard to tell yer dad he aint got the fainest idea thow.. be careful how u do it.. he he he..

spoken from the point of view of a "dad"..

trog

[TechnicalFreak]

What flight sims does he play? I saw a flightsim "game" in a shop in December -07. They had taken real photos of the surroundings etc.etc. If I remember the system to use it would have to be rather good.. I haven't played a flightsim for years, I had one of them where you would get like a "bible" with it to read and learn everything about the plane.

[Irish_PXzyan]

He is running XP.

I know he built the wrong rig :p but compared to his old rig..its alot faster!
The flight sim is the new one...iam not sure what its called....umm...Flight sim X I beleave is whats its called.
He is playing Flight sim 04 on his older rig..it runs fine on his old rig :p I guess he expects alot from his new rig :p

I did tell him tho that the GFX card he bought is not nearly impressive compared to his old 6600GT.

Would the X800GT be a better choice?

[trog100]

an 8600gts would be.. or the radion 3850..

he was trying a little tooo hard to save money..

trog

[ShadowFold]

steal the 8500GT and burn it.. then buy him a HD 3850 he will be happy :D

[thoughtdisorder]

steal the 8500GT and burn it.. then buy him a HD 3850 he will be happy :D

:roll::roll:

[King Wookie]

Here's a thought.

If you are contemplating upgrading your card soon, then get your dad to buy your old one.

Win win!

(then flog the 8500gt on ebay or something)

[Irish_PXzyan]

I dont plan on buying a new one till the end of this year :p

So umm...The PowerColor Radeon X800GT 256mb GDDR3 wont be better than the 8500GT??? I have it here handy..I will give it to him if it would beat the 8500??? what say you?

[trog100]

hard to say with 800gt cards they came in many flavours but it could well be a bettter card.. not sure how "bad" the 8500 is thow..

trog

[ShadowFold]

The X800 is better than the 8500GT(The X800 is about as good as a 7600GT and the 8500GT is alot worse thana 7600GS.)

[newtekie1]

The 8500GT should be able to handle FSX on medium to low, especially after the latest service pack installed for it, that greatly helps performance.

[ShadowFold]

The 8500GT should be able to handle FSX on medium to low, especially after the latest service pack installed for it, that greatly helps performance.

Umm if your talking about XP SP3 it did nothing in terms of peroformance for me.. like not even a single FPS.

[newtekie1]

Umm if your talking about XP SP3 it did nothing in terms of peroformance for me.. like not even a single FPS.

No, I was talking about FSX SP1.

[Irish_PXzyan]

heh maybe I better offer him the card :p

He will be gutted to get rid of the 8500GT before he even used it :p

[ShadowFold]

No, I was talking about FSX SP1.

Flight sim x has a SP? :wtf:

[newtekie1]

Flight sim x has a SP? :wtf:

http://www.fsinsider.com/downloads/Pages/FlightSimulatorXServicePack1.aspx

Yes, and it greatly helps performance.

[keakar]

Here's a thought.

If you are contemplating upgrading your card soon, then get your dad to buy your old one.

Win win!

(then flog the 8500gt on ebay or something)

this would be the best route to take, tell him his chit wont work at the same time you give him a way to fix it by buying your card and he saves money so everyones happy.

selling the card now while some builders may still want it is best way to get his money back.

oh, by the way:

MOBO: no idea...but it was 28 euro..and it was on display...no idea why he bought it...

answer: but it was 28 euro..and it was on display :p

tell your old man to get a 12 pack of beer and you two will hang out so you can teach him why his choices were so bad. a little father and son bonding over shared hobby is great. :)

[ShadowFold]

I had no idea games could have SPs lol

[Irish_PXzyan]

lol :p

The thing is...when I was young and saw computer hardware as something very special! of course...I was clueless about each component! and meh daddi would always be the big man and get everything sorted out :p
I think it would be odd if all of a sudden I become the big man and sort everything out :p lmao
My da is 40 and iam 20 :p just to think that 4 years ago I knew nothing about computers :o heh.

I cant afford to buy a new GFX card now...iam after buying a new expensive monitor and that has to be paid for :p if I bought a new GFX card now id be in dept pretty badly :p

I think the X800GT will suit him better :p I could just swap his card for my X800gt :p

[newtekie1]

While he is waiting on a new GPU, you can also try overclocking that 8500GT. The main thing is getting the memory speed up, hopefully he got lucky and got one of the few DDR3 versions. The lack of memory bandwidth really holds the 8500GT back. The cards generally overclock pretty decently though.

My friend had one of the DDR3 versions. He volt modded it, beefed up the cooling with a VF700-ALCU. He managed to get the card over 8600GT speeds.

[ShadowFold]

While he is waiting on a new GPU, you can also try overclocking that 8500GT. The main thing is getting the memory speed up, hopefully he got lucky and got one of the few DDR3 versions. The lack of memory bandwidth really holds the 8500GT back. The cards generally overclock pretty decently though.

My friend had one of the DDR3 versions. He volt modded it, beefed up the cooling with a VF700-ALCU. He managed to get the card over 8600GT speeds.

They stopped selling GDDR3 8500GT's a few weeks after it launched.

[newtekie1]

They stopped selling GDDR3 8500GT's a few weeks after it launched.

They are still available, but rare, which means he would have to be very lucky to get one. Newegg still has a few available actually. And if he got the parts from a computer shop, who knows how long some of that stuff has been sitting there waiting to be sold.

[ShadowFold]

They are still available, but rare, which means he would have to be very lucky to get one. Newegg still has a few available actually. And if he got the parts from a computer shop, who knows how long some of that stuff has been sitting there waiting to be sold.

The bestbuy in my city has 7800GS AGP and 7950GT's still for sale :laugh: yea you never know

[Irish_PXzyan]

Its the DDR2 version :p
I doubt he will overclock it because his motherboard is terrible...no overclocking for him :p

There is a GeForce 4000 in my PC world store :D been there for 3 years and no one has bought it :p

[ShadowFold]

The motherboard has nothing to do with GPU OCing. My POS Nforce 4 has my HD 3850 OC'd really high

[Irish_PXzyan]

ohhh :p my bad!
Well....I doubt he will overclock much on air :p

[ShadowFold]

ohhh :p my bad!
Well....I doubt he will overclock much on air :p

Im on air and I have mine OC'd almost 100% on the core :)

[Irish_PXzyan]

Yea but this is an 8500GT :p did you see the cooler??? horrible!

[keakar]

ohhh :p my bad!
Well....I doubt he will overclock much on air :p

many people overclock on air but extreme overclockers (those who like to push it till it blows) go to water because they have to with the heat they generate.

watercooling is expensive and problematic so its not something you do just for the heck of it its something you should only do after you know how to overclock and want to push limits you cant reach on aircooling.

[Irish_PXzyan]

Well yea I know that much :p I know all about overclocking..the rewards can be great! If my father decided to overclock his GPU...how far do you think it can go?? like...the little cooler onit looks horrible..surely that cooler will stop him overclocking much.

[ShadowFold]

Well yea I know that much :p I know all about overclocking..the rewards can be great! If my father decided to overclock his GPU...how far do you think it can go?? like...the little cooler onit looks horrible..surely that cooler will stop him overclocking much.

Ask solaris, the lower end 8000 series god :rockout:

[Ripper3]

Ask hat, he's got an 8500GT with passive cooling. I believe he's got a DDR2 version, and he's reporting pretty good overclocks. The 8500GT itself isn't so bad, and FSX has got pretty good performance now, so medium settings shouldn't look horrible, and should play well.

[Graogrim]

The 8500 is the kind of card they sell off the shelf at Wal-Mart. I'd second the recommendation of an HD3850. It offers bargain pricing with really solid performance.

What I'm struggling to understand is why he'd spend extra money on RAM but go so cheap on the other components. That extra $60+ spent on the Ballistix brand would cover the difference for a better video card which would offer *much* more performance per dollar.

[Solaris]

Ask solaris, the lower end 8000 series god :rockout:

Must be a different solaris ?

as i don't game very much .. just use radeon for quality images & the internet

[ShadowFold]

Must be a different solaris ?

as i don't game very much .. just use radeon for quality images & the internet

Did you just say my Radeon HD 3850 is just for quality images & internet??? It does a hella lot more than that.. I dont think an nvidia can do HDMI to HDMI with sound? Its great for gaming too

And yes i'm talking about another solaris.

[Graogrim]

No, he's saying he only uses HIS Radeon for images and the net.

[Solaris]

No, he's saying he only uses HIS Radeon for images and the net.
Yeah thats right ? someone had a few then ?

[Irish_PXzyan]

yea I dont understand why he got great ram and cheap GFX card...the ram cost more than his card...weird.

Well...he will figure it out himself anyway...the card aint gonna cut it :p