Hardware & Technical Flight stick and GFX card help

[HowardHughes]

So im an xbox player for the most part, but in about a month il be building this but with a different GFX card (http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4XTDNG). I started off as a PC player when i was in about kindergarden, but as i grew up PC parts became harder to come by as a kid, so i made the switch to console. Now ive got a good job going on, im 20 years old and i can afford a decent build. So what i was wondering, is what would be a good stick for roughly 100 dollars, (no thruster if possible as i will be using a RAZER TARTARUS in my left hand) and what GFX card would be good for my build?

Edit: i really hope we can transfer our profiles down the road, as i am not looking forward to grinding back up to my current xbox ranks and assets (200 million in assets and my precious entrepreneur rank)

Edit: ive been considering the Mad Catz cyborg F.L.Y 5, should i stick to this option or could i do better for the budget?

 

[HowardHughes]

really? nobody? HELLO?!

 

[Patrick_68000]

Do not forget to take a small SSD for the operating system. For the graphics card, the GTX 970 is a good choice for a quality / price interesting - Add also 80-100 watts to the power supply

 

[Porina]

GPU wise, just get the best you can on the unstated budget. For example, I have used a GTX 960 in the past and that is plenty to drive 60fps+ at 1920x1080 with Ultra defaults. Planetary landings will be an unknown for us, so if you can afford faster, it will be a bit more future proof and/or you can try to turn up even more quality settings over Ultra.

As for the stick, I started with a Fly 5, and do like it. One problem I had was after a while I ran out of buttons, but with the Tartarus that is less likely to be a problem. The other problem with the fly 5 is simply it is a cheap stick and will have a limited life. I've had mine for just over half a year, and it is wearing out. I lost button 2 when I got rather too enthusiastic with a KWS in combat. Working around that, I kept using the stick but the axis are getting dirty/jittery now, and sometimes my ship will make moves I didn't ask it to. I got a Warthog to replace it, but it does rather cost a lot more even if you don't get the throttle unit! But the build quality is orders of magnitude different, as it should be.

Sticking with the lower cost sticks, there's also some from Thrustmaster but I have no experience of them. They also seem popular as a starter stick. As a middle ground, check out the CH stick range. Again I have no experience of them but their reputation seems good for build quality. I think it is worth paying more for something that will last, which based on user reports sadly excludes the upper saitek range.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

I have got the Thrustmaster HOTAS X joystick, and I am happy with it. A useful trick you might want to try is to fit a drive exclusively for use by the Swap File (or Virtual Memory, or Page File, whatever Microsoft are calling it this week). This will help stop your PC from slowing down (if the Swap File gets heavy usage and is on the same drive as the active application they have to take turns). I have been doing this since Windows 95, and my machines rarely slow down.