For a little bit I was running at a comfortable 4.6ghz but I recently jumped to 5ghz because well... I'm demanding when it comes to hardware. Not only because of FSX but of the multitude of development tools I have running along FSX. Thought this might help those who are wondering whether it's worth it to jump on the i7 Ivy OC bandwagon

 

Firstly I loaded FSX to get a good feel of what 5ghz feels like as an end-user. Very impressive to say the least, no matter what you throw at it. My settings are for the most part all on 100%, except water.

 

- In areas like KSEA and Orbx NA with 100% autogen, I was getting 50-60fps inside the NGX cockpit, with UT2 AI enabled max traffic.

- Remote areas with Orbx and Lancair Legacy: 80-120fps. Basically any other aircraft besides PMDG ngx, 747, etc, was seeing 60+fps

- I immediately noticed that my manual landings were much.. much softer and better thanks to the liquid smooth framerate providing a more realistic experience

 

I couldn't get FPS under 40 unless I set water to 2.x or enabled Bloom.

 

Hardware:

ASRock Z77 Pro

i7 3770k

Antec H2O 920 Liquid Cooling system

Multitude of SSD's

Corsair Vengeance 1866

EVGA Superclocked GTX 680 2GB

Antec 850w PSU

 

At 5ghz, Vcore is at 1.32v. Max temps 67c under stress tests. NO De-lidding was performed. I simply lapped the watercooler and CPU, and used good ol' AC5.

 

Just a few notes:

 

- The usual tweaks must be done. Stock FSX first only pegged at 25fps

- I don't think this OC is possible without liquid cooling / or delidding

- You don't have to stress your computer to run 5ghz all the time. Mobo's like ASRock allow user presets, so you can quickly load a lower OC for non-prehistoric programs

Who's water block and radiator you using? I'm running a 2700k @ 4.9 on air (Noctua D4) I'm thinking maybe of getting a swiftech block for mine Already have a triple 120 radiator and pump. Last time I did water it was with a Swiftech block/TEC. Ran great for a year, closed loop, no resevoir. Came home one day to the smell of radiator fluid in the house. Tubing had seperated at the radiator outlet even though I used bulldog clamps, sprayed fluid all over the living room wall. Fortunately since the radiator was mounted outside the case, no electronics were fried. After that I swore off water for good, but now the 5ghz + mark is beckoning a call I've heard the 3770's run a lot hotter, so I'm interested in your rig. Good job man!

 

Chris

I don't understand how 400 MHz difference can suddenly give you 50 - 60 fps constant in the most heavily detailed areas with the most heavily detailed addons at max settings. What were you getting before?

 

I have an 3930K running at 4.7 GHz, a GTX580 and 8GB of DDR3-2133 at 11-11-11-29 timings. I doubt I could get half of what you are describing and I have my system setup as recommended by Word Not Allowed. What would you get at say UK2000 Heathrow with those settings of yours?

 

Either this is exaggerated or my computer just sucks.

Do you lock your FPS with Nvidia Inspector? Why would you let them run wild like that?

I don't understand how 400 MHz difference can suddenly give you 50 - 60 fps constant in the most heavily detailed areas with the most heavily detailed addons at max settings. What were you getting before?

 

I have an 3930K running at 4.7 GHz, a GTX580 and 8GB of DDR3-2133 at 11-11-11-29 timings. I doubt I could get half of what you are describing and I have my system setup as recommended by Word Not Allowed. What would you get at say UK2000 Heathrow with those settings of yours?

 

Either this is exaggerated or my computer just sucks.

 

I agree, something is amiss here, but I don't know what it could be. 50-60 frames in ORBX territory in the NGX in KSEA w/ 100% autogen? Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'd love to be, but are others seeing this? No, I don't subscribe to the idea the guy w/ the same hardware running at 4.6Ghz gets only 30-40 frames in the same conditions, which would be fabulous in its own right as it implies NOTHING is bogging down this system and I never hear this from other users w/ the highest end systems, add a paltry 400 more Mhz, all of a sudden the processing flood gates have opened.

I agree, something is amiss here, but I don't know what it could be. 50-60 frames in ORBX territory in the NGX in KSEA w/ 100% autogen? Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'd love to be, but are others seeing this? No, I don't subscribe to the idea the guy w/ the same hardware running at 4.6Ghz gets only 30-40 frames in the same conditions, which would be fabulous in its own right as it implies NOTHING is bogging down this system and I never hear this from other users w/ the highest end systems, add a paltry 400 more Mhz, all of a sudden the processing flood gates have opened.

 

In ORBX KSEA with 100% autogen + NGX, my system would be down into the mid teens..... Something is amiss here.

At 4.6ghz with NGX I get around 30-45fps with the same settings. The 400mhz doesn't open the "floodgates" as you described, it just boosts it higher by about 5-15fps. Perhaps my fsx.cfg settings work better for my system, who knows. I'll post them later.

 

I disable aircraft shadows and building shadows as well. Weather is AS2012.

I personally like unlimited frames because it feels much more fluid than locked at 30fps.

I concur with your findings because I experience the same thing. Only thing I have to tell you though, your machine is on the brink of instability. Running a lidded 3770K at 5GHz with only 1.3v, is really pushing it.

 

Try running Prime95 for 5 minutes. I say Prime95, because if you try IntelBurnTest, it will not run for more than 1 minute, for sure.

 

What temps are you getting under full load?

I personally like unlimited frames because it feels much more fluid than locked at 30fps.

 

I experince the same, never lock my frames. Tried it, somehow my eyes don't like it I'm getting dizzy and get headaches with locked frames even with stable 30Fps.

 

Anyway didnt think it was possible getting so good performance out of FSX. Maybe I need to upgrade to Ivy bridge this post tempted me.. :rolleyes:

The 400mhz doesn't open the "floodgates" as you described, it just boosts it higher by about 5-15fps

 

The same for me from 5 to 5.4ghz much more fluid on ground and heay airports

what is the batch of your CPU ? some of the never CPU:s like low voltage

 

Hasse

Performance depends on what you're looking at. If I load up the NGX at night in bad weather w/DX10 @ 2560x1440 and in-game AA/AF on the runway @ FSDT's KJFK w/UT2 traffic cranked and Manhattan X in the background w/UTX settings maxed it can get as low as about 15 FPS looking at the terminal. If I look the other direction it goes up to the 30's easily, often in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's even. In the air it's usually 20's-30's heading toward Manhattan but if I look back at the terminal it can get into the low teens.

 

So you have to ask yourself: how much are you really stressing the CPU? I think the above scenario is about as demanding of a CPU workload as FSX can generate while the OP's is a fair bit less so. Not to say it isn't demanding, just that it's simply not *as demanding* as the scenario I've outlined.

Performance depends on what you're looking at. If I load up the NGX at night in bad weather w/DX10 @ 2560x1440 and in-game AA/AF on the runway @ FSDT's KJFK w/UT2 traffic cranked and Manhattan X in the background w/UTX settings maxed it can get as low as about 15 FPS looking at the terminal. If I look the other direction it goes up to the 30's easily, often in the 40's, 50's, 60's, and 70's even. In the air it's usually 20's-30's heading toward Manhattan but if I look back at the terminal it can get into the low teens.

 

So you have to ask yourself: how much are you really stressing the CPU? I think the above scenario is about as demanding of a CPU workload as FSX can generate while the OP's is a fair bit less so. Not to say it isn't demanding, just that it's simply not *as demanding* as the scenario I've outlined.

 

How is the performance from DX9 to DX10?

How is the performance from DX9 to DX10?

 

Subjectively: it's a bit faster, I do it mostly for the lighting, shadows, and water though.

At 4.6ghz with NGX I get around 30-45fps with the same settings. The 400mhz doesn't open the "floodgates" as you described, it just boosts it higher by about 5-15fps.

 

It's back to add 8.6% increase in clock speed, and report 5-15 fps increase, which is 16-33% increase in frame rate. Unless there is some magic from improve synchronization or something like that, it doesn't add up. I would only buy this if the test were 100% identical which often it isn't. Try running something exactly standardized, which means you must save the flight, not bring in new weather, time of day, anything and see what you get then. There is no valid explanation, though I'm more than willing to hear one.

How is the performance from DX9 to DX10?

DX10 has better looking water then DX9... =). In game AA is also better but as you can't get any additional via inspector DX9 can give you a lot better AA through there. DX10 is also using much less PCIe bandwidth so in the scenarios when the PCIe bus limit you in DX9 it won't be in DX10. When it comes to none PCIe limited scenes it's slightly faster at some places and slightly slower in some.But back to the original post. I don't buy that you would get any impressive improvements in FPS by adding another 8-9% processor speed. If you already had 50FPS you get 5 more, not 15. A processor is an extremely logical thing. 8-9% improvement is however when you'll start to notice it. What might also make a smaller improvement more noticeable is when you'll maintain something. For example when that small improvement makes you maintain your locked FPS most of the time instead of some of the time, or when your FPS stays above the refresh rate of your LCD all of a sudden instead of being below it. The extra smoothness from this will make that smaller FPS improvement a lot more noticeable.