I am quite certain and believing that cores don't have that much of an impact on FSX from all the facts and figures going around. So kinda ditched the X79 already, and would rather put that on a nice steel case or upgrade some fans.

 

One question is that, will my expected setup (with a 3770K) be bottlenecked by my GTX580? I tried to see if I can get another 580, my local computer store seem not to have them anymore, and any 680+ are very expensive. If my 3770K matches or slightly bottlenecked by my 580, that means with Haswell, I must upgrade my videocard as well...

 

No, it doesn't work like that.

FPS wise, FSX is massively CPU bound. That means that you can run the fastest CPU in the world, and you could still couple it with a mid range card, provided that it can handle the resolution and antialiasig/filtering, it would not bottleneck the CPU in any way.

 

An example:

 

I7 3770K or I5 3570K @ 5GHz + GTX560Ti 1920x1800 + 8xS + 8xSS would in no way be bottlenecked by the GPU. YOu probably overclock to 7-8GHz and the GPU wouldn't be nearly maxed out.

Do the test yourself. See how much GPU usage you have in that scenario with your 580 and I bet it's not even at 50% usage. So you could be running 8GHz and you would still be CPU limited

 

There is no balancing CPU and GPU in FSX. You get the fastest (by fastest I mean IPC) CPU for FPS, and then you pick the GPU that will cope with your resolution and / or AA levels you want to run

 

Let me put it this way. At 1440p of resolution the GPU needs to work with almost twice as many pixels as opposed to 1080p

Same goes for 8xSS vs 4xSGSS vs 2xSGSS. Each step up there alone renders a GTX680 half as fast in relative terms. I mean settings have a lot more impact than a few hundred MHz of clock speed or a 10-20% IPC increase or a little better memory performance

 

How well your GPU will do in those situations has nothing to do with the CPU. It's about the settings for the most part.

 

In short: If your 580 is doing fine at your current resolution and you current CPU, it will do just fine with 3770K, 3570K, 390K, or Haswell.

It may eventually somewhat bottleneck your CPU at altitude, away from big airports, with clear skies... but in those situations you'll be easily above 50 - 60FPS

 

Performance problems in FSX appear only in complex scenery, lots of traffic and autogen, and those are MASSIVELY CPU bound scenarios

...or a nasty thunderstorm, with 3 or four layers of 4096 clouds at 1440 pixels with 8xS + 2xSGSS + 16xAF... and then it's all about the GPU

Dazz,

 

I completely believe you about the haswell, and don't take this the wrong way, but a-) Haswell is being marketed for mainstream, not high end, b-) Intel is going to keep LGA 2011 until at least 2015. If you add 2 and 2 together, you can see that they will most likely release Haswell, milk the public for a year (you know how it is with a new architecture/new CPU the first year), then release the next best thing for LGA2011. I would rather get a LGA2011 board now, get what's best available for LGA2011, stick with it for at least couple of years, and get the new 8 core or whatever it is intel is releasing for LGA2011.

 

I highly doubt that they are going to release a mainstream CPU and let their high-end market suffer. I'm not questioning that Haswell may or may not be better than 3930k, it most likely will be (minus the 2 cores and hyper threading), but that will be only temporary as they are bound to release something for LGA2011 platform as well.

 

And this whole thing of "let's for what's just around the corner" makes people really obsessive:) Oh let's wait for iphone 4, its much better than iphone 3, uhoh we got a 3GS instead, you know what I'm saying? Life is too short my friend, between now and Haswell being affordable and usable (all bugs eliminated, new boards get their BIOS upgrades, etc), you are talking about months. Or let me say, thousands of hours of NGX flight times! I honestly love my 3930k, I have every single thing at maximum in FSX on a massive resolution with every popular add-on installed, and the lowest fps I am getting is 18 in airports like KJFK or flying over Manhattan. What is haswell going to bring me on top of that? 2 more fps? or 3? It's not going to be 10 more.

 

If you have a 2500k type of CPU or 3770k, yes it makes no sense to buy 3930k, but if you have an old beater, no point of suffering by waiting for Haswell to come out for months.

If you have a 2500k type of CPU or 3770k, yes it makes no sense to buy 3930k, but if you have an old beater, no point of suffering by waiting for Haswell to come out for months.

 

Now the question is, if I get a 3930K, sure it may not be that much better than a 3770K, but it's using the 2011, which means it may be able to be expanded in 2015. But 2015 is a LONG time away, IF it even will come out with some higher end CPUs. So is it worth spending the extra 200 odd bux on a 3930K, to hope for an upgrade in few years? And what happens if this never happens, something else (I can't say what) could happen that blows this plan away? I will have lost my hope and eventually still spending thousands on another machine.

 

On the other hand, if this doesn't happen, I have spent this much on a new machine now getting an 1155, only need to spend another thousand on a new machine, as I would have spent another 200, maybe another 400 on a new CPU in the future.

 

It's a touch choice, and guess this is where all the knowledge watching the technology market comes in place (something that I'm lacking of).

Now the question is, if I get a 3930K, sure it may not be that much better than a 3770K, but it's using the 2011, which means it may be able to be expanded in 2015. But 2015 is a LONG time away, IF it even will come out with some higher end CPUs. So is it worth spending the extra 200 odd bux on a 3930K, to hope for an upgrade in few years? And what happens if this never happens, something else (I can't say what) could happen that blows this plan away? I will have lost my hope and eventually still spending thousands on another machine.

 

On the other hand, if this doesn't happen, I have spent this much on a new machine now getting an 1155, only need to spend another thousand on a new machine, as I would have spent another 200, maybe another 400 on a new CPU in the future.

 

It's a touch choice, and guess this is where all the knowledge watching the technology market comes in place (something that I'm lacking of).

 

3930k with an LGA2011 system is going to last you for a very long time. Look at my FPS numbers, are they satisfactory? You are talking about even a smaller resolution, if I use my 27" monitor, I get a constant 25fps in this system. Intel and every hardware manufacturer has invested so much into R&D for LGA2011, there is no way (and internal intel documents prove this - feel free to google it) they will abandon LGA2011. It has at least 1 if not 2 more rounds of new CPUs.

Guys, Intel may release new chips for LGA2011 but it will still be Sandy Bridge (or Ivy Bridge). This is the key point. SB & SB - E are the same architecture. Same IPC, virtually the same overclockability. Same IMC, same System Agent design.

LGA2011 may be enthusiast and LGA1155 mainstream, but that doesn't mean a thing to FSX.

If FSX could take advantage of the extra memory channels (nothing I'm aware of does) or the extra L3 cache (no game performs better with more L3 cache) or Hyperhtreading / extra cores (virtually useless for FSX unless you fly at 4x time warp or according Efrain, with Tileproxy) or the extra PCIe lanes (pointless with the advent of PCIe 3.0 and the fact that SLI is pretty much useless in FSX ) then yeah, but so much of that gear in LGA2011 goes totally wasted in FSX...

 

Now if you plan on taking on XPlane or you have a use for those features somehow, it could be a good option.

 

@DerStig. 2 -3 FPS may not seem like like too much, but if you had to choose between 23FPS for $200 or 20FPS for $500, what would you go with?

Nothing in LGA2011 will ever outperform Haswell, or even your current 3930K

 

By the way, when you say you have "I have every single thing at maximum in FSX" does that include water? bloom enabled? traffic at 100% (road taffic, boats, etc..)

 

Do you run DX10?

Now if you plan on taking on XPlane or you have a use for those features somehow, it could be a good option.

 

Not in the foreseeable future mate. But this conversation is very useful, the knowledge is being quite practical!

Guys, Intel may release new chips for LGA2011 but it will still be Sandy Bridge (or Ivy Bridge). This is the key point. SB & SB - E are the same architecture. Same IPC, virtually the same overclockability. Same IMC, same System Agent design.

LGA2011 may be enthusiast and LGA1155 mainstream, but that doesn't mean a thing to FSX.

If FSX could take advantage of the extra memory channels (nothing I'm aware of does) or the extra L3 cache (no game performs better with more L3 cache) or Hyperhtreading / extra cores (virtually useless for FSX unless you fly at 4x time warp or according Efrain, with Tileproxy) or the extra PCIe lanes (pointless with the advent of PCIe 3.0 and the fact that SLI is pretty much useless in FSX ) then yeah, but so much of that gear in LGA2011 goes totally wasted in FSX...

 

Now if you plan on taking on XPlane or you have a use for those features somehow, it could be a good option.

 

@DerStig. 2 -3 FPS may not seem like like too much, but if you had to choose between 23FPS for $200 or 20FPS for $500, what would you go with?

Nothing in LGA2011 will ever outperform Haswell, or even your current 3930K

 

By the way, when you say you have "I have every single thing at maximum in FSX" does that include water? bloom enabled? traffic at 100% (road taffic, boats, etc..)

 

Do you run DX10?

Yes, its DX10, I have bloom enabled, traffic sliders are at 50%. To answer your question, I would take 20 FPS for $500, because I am not going to spend thousands of dollars to play a flight simulator (I don't think any sane person would do), I do other things with my computer, such as video encoding, photoshop, lots and lots of I/O, compiling source code, and so on. So I am always going to pick LGA 2011 over 1156 even if the latter has 10 fps over FSX. I love flying (have been flight simming for more than 10 years now) but I am not "obsessed" with FSX. I am not going to spend that kind of money so that I get 2 frames more in FSX and suffer in other areas.

 

That being said, your logic is flawed. I have seen first hand experience that there is constant 2fps difference between 1333 Mhz memory and 2400 Mhz at high overclocks (not so much around 4.2 Ghz, but around 4.8 Ghz). So more memory bandwidth surely will help FSX. You are also assuming again that intel is going to sit on their butts for the next 3 years and not improve LGA 2011.

 

This thread is full of assumptions. Why don't we work with concrete facts? Where is Hasewell? Has it been released? Has the specs been released? This argument of mainstream vs enthusiast has been in every internet forum for so many years now, its the same thing over and over and over again. As I said, if you worry about $200, don't bother with LGA2011. Because it's not going to stop with the $200 you will pay on top of a regular quad core. It will be the $350 board, then it will be the cooling, then it will be PCIe 3.0 GPU, then it will be this and it will be that. Before you know it, you will have spent well over $1000 more. Can you spend that kind of money right now? If the answer is yes, that means you are doing financially well, so go ahead and buy the 3930k now, 2 years later go ahead and buy the next best thing. If LGA2011 does so bad that and the new chip is so good, then go ahead and sell the LGA2011 build with a few hundred dollars loss and buy the next best thing.

 

These are computers, we are not buying a house nor deciding which college our children should attend to. I don't see why it has to be this complicated. Live within your means, buy the best you can afford. At the end of the day, it will all come down to financial power. This is like saying don't buy a porsche to go to work because the ride is so stiff, it has horrible mileage, and you can only take it to 65 mph in an highway, so what's the point? Well if you are asking that question, that means you are not meant to buy a Porsche, doesn't mean the car is a waste of money, it means its not your car:) If I'm making a million dollars a year, do you think I care about $300/month of car payment? On the other hand, if I'm making 150k/year, I can come here and try to justify why BMW can get the job done just as much and find thousands of reasons to not to pay for that extra $300/month.

I do other things with my computer, such as video encoding, photoshop, lots and lots of I/O, compiling source code, and so on.

 

Then you obviously made the right decision. I never questioned that by the way

 

That being said, your logic is flawed. I have seen first hand experience that there is constant 2fps difference between 1333 Mhz memory and 2400 Mhz at high overclocks (not so much around 4.2 Ghz, but around 4.8 Ghz). So more memory bandwidth surely will help FSX

.

 

It does help. You get about a 1% perf boost for every other 100MHz of RAM freq.

I guess you are talking about memory channels here, so question is how much more bandwidth you get with 4 channels vs 2? the answer is zero. Well, that's also always been a hot topic in the tech forums in the web. Plenty of discussions one can google, and plenty of tests you can do (and I have done)

 

So you go from 1600MHz to 2133MHz RAM, you get say another 5GB/s in bandwidth and a 5% performance boost in FSX.

 

Now if you test FSX on the same rig on 2 vs 3 or 4 channels, there's no difference in performance and no impact on bandwidth by any meassure but SisSoft Sandra's memory BW bench.

 

You are also assuming again that intel is going to sit on their butts for the next 3 years and not improve LGA 2011

 

Improve a socket? Intel? you must be really new to this Mehmet. No offense, but do you think Intel will improve a socket to allow for faster (clock for clock & core for core) CPU to fit in there? yes of course they will... that's what they call next socket.

Remember I'm talking about FSX (so IPC, not core count) because you should be able to use 8 core Ivy Bridge-E CPU's in LGS2011 late 2012. So yeah, they will launch new stuff and faster stuff for LGA2011, but mainly adding more cores.

 

IB-E should be about a 5% faster clock for clock than SB-E and allow for faster RAM, so it should actually be about a 10% faster in FSX, but that's still slower than Haswell

 

This thread is full of assumptions. Why don't we work with concrete facts? Where is Hasewell? Has it been released? Has the specs been released?

 

Well, some rumors, some assumptions, but rather conservative ones I'd say.

Feel free to let me know in a couple of months if Haswell is not at least a 20 - 30% faster than Sandy Bridge including IPC, IMC and OC potential improvements.

 

Because it's not going to stop with the $200 you will pay on top of a regular quad core. It will be the $350 board, then it will be the cooling, then it will be PCIe 3.0 GPU, then it will be this and it will be that. Before you know it, you will have spent well over $1000 more. Can you spend that kind of money right now? If the answer is yes, that means you are doing financially well, so go ahead and buy the 3930k now, 2 years later go ahead and buy the next best thing. If LGA2011 does so bad that and the new chip is so good, then go ahead and sell the LGA2011 build with a few hundred dollars loss and buy the next best thing.

 

What you or anyone does with their money is none of my business, I'm just talking about FSX and how different HW options effect performance in FSX, or my take on it all at. I just spent 800€ in a new set of wheels, a carbon fork, tyres, saddle, seatpost and whatnot for my road bike and believe me, at my current shape that was money wasted any way you look at it haha. But I could care less

 

I have nothing angainst your plan. Actually I do exactly that. Every other tock, I sell my CPU and mobo and get the latest and greatest for FSX. I'll upgrade to Haswell if it's not a total flop, CPU + mobo + (2600 - 3000MHz RAM) should go for some 250 + 150 + 80€. I should be able to sell my current gear for about 250 - 300€, so overall, for 200 -300€ I can get the next big thing (for FSX) every two years.

 

That's another reason for me to go mainstream. In the second hand market it's a lot easier to sell a 200€ CPU than a 400€ one. Again, if I had a use for those extra cores, then I'd go enthusiast, but that's not the case.

The OCZ Vector this model: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227916 is considered one of the best SSD's on the market right now....

 

The 2 big things to consider about an SSD is the size and the IOPS rating. Its all about the Random Read/Write speeds as those are what you are going to be using the most (generally).

The performance benefits and foreseeable future are quite obvious through your discussion, which I say again, have taught me lots! I'm not very financially rich or poor as I don't make a lot, and use even less (not much bills to pay yet), cycling is really my only expensive hobby. So with all this discussion, it just further consolidates which stream of CPU I should be going for. Cheers.

 

What you or anyone does with their money is none of my business, I'm just talking about FSX and how different HW options effect performance in FSX, or my take on it all at. I just spent 800€ in a new set of wheels, a carbon fork, tyres, saddle, seatpost and whatnot for my road bike and believe me, at my current shape that was money wasted any way you look at it haha. But I could care less

 

Just curious, what types of wheels did you get? Just upgrades? Or rebuild?

Just curious, what types of wheels did you get? Just upgrades? Or rebuild?

 

Campy Zonda 2013 major upgrade over my former elderly Airline Vuelta 6, that I'm going to be using in the trainer

Campy Zonda 2013 major upgrade over my former elderly Airline Vuelta 6, that I'm going to be using in the trainer

 

They look real nice! I was juggling between a new system or a set of new carbon aeros (don't have a set yet). But figured I need time to train myself up first (haven't been riding for the past 4 months), so might as well go for a new system! Cheaper than a set of carbon aeros as well!

 

That being said, another amendment to my list, updates in red, comments?

• MB: Asus Rampage MAXIMUM Gene V/Z77: - AU$248
  
• CPU: i7 3770K, going to de-lid it: - AU$335
  
• GFX: NVidia GTX580 - AU$0
  
• RAM: G.Skill Trident X DDR3 2400MHz CL9D v1.65 8GB (2 x 4) - AU$120
  
• HD: At least one SSD (256GB) and one SATA (1TB) - AU$Undecided
  
• Cooling: NZXT Kraken x60 - AU$155
  
• Rad Fans: Noctua A14 FLX 140mm x2 - AU$29 x 2 = AU$58
  
• Case: NZXT Phantom 820 White Full Tower - AU$265
  
• PSU: SeaSonic X-750 Version 3 - AU$225
  

Again, I would pick a 3570K instead. It will perform just the same, and get you $100 closer to those aero rims.

 

For an SSD, something like a Samsung 840, Vertex 4 or Crucial M4

Again, I would pick a 3570K instead. It will perform just the same, and get you $100 closer to those aero rims.

 

For an SSD, something like a Samsung 840, Vertex 4 or Crucial M4

 

With the CPU, I'm not that concerned about the 100 bux, I'm more concerned about how or if this 100 bux will buy me some better performance. I'm not talking about double digit percent performance increase, I'm talking about maybe 2-3 frames increase.

 

I know from reading and reading only, some benefits of the 3770K over the 3570K, but I'm sure reading wise you would have read more than me, experience wise you'll also be a lot more superior than me. So let me ask; if we take the cost and the HT ability out of the equation, how is the i7 differ from the i5 in terms of overclockability, heat (hence resulting in OCability), RAM speed usage, wattage, and assuming that IPC for both will be the same?

 

I am not all that concerned about the extra $100 or its HT ability, all I care about is how OCable are they and what they mean to FSX.

Overclockability:

 

If you don't delid it, you'll heat the temps wall before it's max OC. At about 4.4 - 4.6GHz

Since both disipate the same heat, both will top at the same speed.

 

Even if you delid, and spite some think 3770K are binned chips, it's still a crap shot. Even if we were to accept that they're binned higher, you should expect maybe 100MHz more in average from the 3700K.

 

Look here and judge by yourself. Going by that the 3570K & the 3770K overclock just the same

 

RAM speed usage, wattage, and assuming that IPC for both will be the same

 

Yes, they're the same chip. Exactly the same chip except for HT and 6 vs 8MB of L3 cache, which is a non factor too.