Just reporting results because I know how sensitive the Intel / AMD / ATI / Nvidia owners all are because we all put money into our rigs and don't need to hear which is better.

 

Background:

I'm good with hardware installs and troubleshooting, and I understand what I read fairly well when I look at a spec sheet - but I'm far from an expert on the technical differences on how ATI/AMD/Intel/Nvidia handle different operations in FSX. It's just too mind boggling and in the end - I just want better performance.

 

FSX Platform:

Win 8 Pro - UT USA - AS-2012 (w/graphics @1024), GEX, MyTraffic and a host of commercial aircraft and freeware AFCAD's to get my airports somewhat realistic with the AI. I fly offline.

 

Test Aircraft - PMDG 737-900 NGX in the Virtual Cockpit w/ Track IR

 

Old Hardware - AMD 965 Phenom II @3.4 w/ Asus M4A88T-M/USB 3 and 8gb Corsair DDR3 @1366 - Samsung 500gb SSD    -   Video Card - ATI Radeon HD 5770 w/ 1gb

My video card settings are all "application controlled" since anything I did w/ AA/AF seemed to blur the heck out of the menus. And my FPS never changed much despite the mountains of advice on video settings.

 

FSX Settings

In game I've got traffic @40% w cars and boats @5%.  Weather @70mi I believe.   LOD @large     Scenery Complexity maxed and Autogen @ Normal. Water=Low 2x   Mesh/Texture 19m / 2m. Frames are set to unlimited.

Bojotie's shaders are installed and fsx.cfg is tweaked pretty much by his tool.

 

Old System Performance = Crazy. Nice frame rates based on numerous factors and bad frame rates on others. But to me - I can't accept reducing my scenery or weather - and I can't accept less than 15fps on major airport in the Virtual Cockpit.     So I went for the hardware upgrade on a budget of $500.

 

New Setup

Against a lot of advice, I couldn't help myself wondering what the AMD FX-8350 8 core CPU would do for me.

Going with a lot of advice, I went with the Nvidia GTX660 w/ 2gb.

 

I installed with all the defaults on the Video card - and I re-ran the cfg config tool to adjust for processor speed and GPU memory.

Everything else I left exactly the same.

 

I also saved my weather file from AS 2012 to make sure my benchmarks were somewhat accurate to compare.

Each location had a fair amount of clouds. K

 

 

Results

KSFO on the ground Taxing to 19L (w/ Flightbeam KSFO) / Low Visibility <5sm

Old = 11 FPS

New = 33 FPS

 

KLAX (Default Scenery) Taxing to 24R / Mid Visibility ~10sm

Old = 14 FPS

New = 35 FPS

 

KLGA (Default Scenery)   This geo area has been the bane of my FS Life. Taxing facing Manhatten / Good Visibility ~15sm

Old = 8 FPS

New = 23 FPS

 

KMCI (Default Scenery) Taxing to Runway 19L

Old = 18 FPS

New = 42 FPS

 

LOWW Airport (MegaScenery Austria) Taxing to Runway 34

Old = 17 FPS

New = 39 FPS

 

 

Climb / Decent over USA (w/ UT-USA) and 4 layers of clouds

Old = 22 to 30 FPS

New = 29 to 57 FPS

 

Climb / Decent over Europe and 4 layers of clouds

Old = 28 to 40 FPS

New = 34 to 69 FPS

 

Cruise (average between USA and Europe)

Old = ~35 FPS looking down at clouds  and 70+ looking up at clear sky

New = ~65 FPS looking down at clouds and 120+ (fps counter went crazy) looking up at clear sky.

 

Comments / Conclusions

I realize there's many many things I could have / can do to tweak out this hardware setup.
The fact is - I don't want to. I'm sure I could have made my old hardware setup work, but I just want to fly. I'm sure I could make my new hardware gallop, but I just want to fly. The weather is getting nice outside and I'm not ready to spend my summer tweaking.

I know myself. I'll start tweaking on everyone's advice, and it will suddenly be October.

 

I know many of you think putting AMD and Nvidia together is like putting ketchup on a filet mignon. And maybe so - but 3 pieces of hardware for less than $500 has FSX moving at very acceptable frames - and all this before any type of tweaking or optimization.

 

I had so many options on my budget with i5 / i7, but curiosity on the FX-8350 chip got the best of me.

 

Looking forward to comments / critiques / civilized debate / and for those who love to hijack to another topic - go for it.

 

Have a great weekend.

 

Bob

I run the fx-8350 and I get 25-30fps in the PMDG NGX with the exception of New York regardless of weather or airport I'm over clocked to 4.5 ghz which is a very slight overclock on this chip some people get 5ghz with liquid cooling. I would get an h100 cooler for it that way you have plenty of room temp wise to overclock

Thanks for your review and the time and effort you took, it should make especially good reading for anyone on a tight budget.