Why is I5 considered to be only midrange

[jfri 42]

After reading the official software and hardware guide for FSX I found that they recommend an I7 (high range) over an I5 which

should only be midrange. I wonder why ? After comparing for example INTEL CORE I5 3570K with a INTEL CORE I7 3770K I see only two differences. Stock frequency 100 MHz higher on I7 which also have slightly more L3 cache. Does this make such a difference as to state different range ? I think I have read here before that I7 over I5 is waste of money. Is that wrong ?

The price difference is 45% higher for I7. Is that worth spending ?

 

 

[TechguyMaxC 516]

I5 is not mid-range, it is in the "mainstream performance" market segment, which places it above the mid-range market segment. Now if you want to use the term "mid-range" colloquially, I suppose it's fair to do so but in my mind, mid-range would likely be the I3 lineup. You have to remember there are two full product lines below the I3, the Pentium and the Celeron (technically 3 if we count the Atom).

 

The I5 is for all intents and purposes approximately equal to the I7, at least when it comes to performance in the vast majority of games (including FSX). The only reason to get an I7 is if you want to squeeze an extra hundred MHz or so out of the chip when overclocking, and even that is no guarantee.

[Rocky_53 1,566]

Hmm, well my 'midrange' chip is returning me beautiful smooth frames at 4.6Ghz!! B)

[jfri 42]

Hmm, well my 'midrange' chip is returning me beautiful smooth frames at 4.6Ghz!! B)

 

Is that with ORBX scenery and their recommended highest slider setting togeteher with weather applications like opus x and demanding planes like realair Legacy or PMDG NGX737 with lot of AI traffic and road traffic ?

If not what must still be sacrificed ?

[Rocky_53 1,566]

I am fairly conservative with all my settings and am more concerned with smoothness and good texture loading rather than flying with all settings on max. As an example, yesterday I flew from Orbx's Concrete to Darrington in my RV7, with traffic at 15% GA at 30%, autogen at very dense, with 4/8 cloud cover and was seeing 28/30 fps and very smooth. Same scenario around Orbx's New Zealand in the Realair Lancair with 30fps set at very dense autogen. FSDT KLAX, in the NGX with AI at 25% 4/8 cloud, autogen at normal, 20-25fps on the ground and 25-30 on departure over Megascenery's Socal. 

BTW, there's not a rig on the market that will run FSX with everything set at Max and is stutter free in every scenario...

[CryogenicPilot 1]

OP:

 

The only real advantage of the i7 over the i5 is when using a lot of multithreaded apps versus single threaded. FSX and the majority of current games and apps are single threaded (SP2 allows offloading of scenery to a second physical core, but not at 100%). Also, having multithreading is a hardware level feature, so there is no magic hack that can enable multithreading on i5 CPUs, unfortunately.

 

So, if you do a lot of photo editing, video production, 3D design & rendering, or use CAD applications an i7 is ideal because of the extra threads those particular programs are designed to leverage to improve the workload. 

 

One last thing...

 

Be aware some of these guides the FS Community take as Gospel can actually decrease performance because a lot of the so-called tweaks and additional settings (Nvidia Inspector) are either redundant, outdated or obsolete at this point due to hardware finally surpassing what is inefficient code from 13 years ago (FS2000/FS2002/FS2004).

[Tabs 2,790]

In general the i7 is considered the high end chip because it has hyperthreading (which is essentially creating virtual cores using idle CPU cycles in between operations) - most games see little to no effect from HT though because they're highly serialized in their programming so for gaming systems the i5 is usually the better choice right now. To get the really high OCs on i7s you have to turn off HT anyway, which effectively makes the chip an i5.

[CryogenicPilot 1]

-most games see little to no effect from HT though because they're highly serialized in their programming so for gaming systems the i5 is usually the better choice right now.

 

It's ironic because games are one of the few apps where parallel programming would come in handy, but then again, trying to predict the outcome of certain threads (randomly) is the whole reason why games can't be easily parallelisied like more restrictive apps. Plus, there is the whole "It has to run on lower system configurations" requirement, too  ^_^

[jfri 42]

 

 

BTW, there's not a rig on the market that will run FSX with everything set at Max and is stutter free in every scenario...

 

Will there ever be ?

I notice that your system uses a bigger monitor and higher resolution compared to my 1920*1200. How much difference could that do ?

 

 

n general the i7 is considered the high end chip because it has hyperthreading

 

Actually when reading the official guide I was referring to it seems more that an I7 could be over clocked to higher speeds compared to an I5. 

[Rocky_53 1,566]

Will there ever be ?

I notice that your system uses a bigger monitor and higher resolution compared to my 1920*1200. How much difference could that do ?

 

Hiya, I noticed between 10-15% reduction in frames. It just meant that I reduced my AI and traffic sliders down a tad to compensate.

[cmeeks 8]

In general the i7 is considered the high end chip because it has hyperthreading (which is essentially creating virtual cores using idle CPU cycles in between operations) - most games see little to no effect from HT though because they're highly serialized in their programming so for gaming systems the i5 is usually the better choice right now. To get the really high OCs on i7s you have to turn off HT anyway, which effectively makes the chip an i5.

 

Not to mention hyperthreading also generates a lot more heat unless you disable it. Buy the biggest baddest i5, spend the rest of the money on good components, and you will have a very "high-end" flight simming computer.

[jfri 42]

 

 

Buy the biggest baddest i5

 

And that would be I5 3570K Ivy Bridge ?

[Adam T Lutley 12]

Compromises still have to be made with FSX settings on platforms screaming at over 5 Ghz. I certainly would not consider the I5 to be a mid range chip. CPU evolution and development took a different path than what Microsoft thought when developing FSX. They foresaw faster and faster CPU's instead of the development of multiple cores. FSX is just not optimized to take advantage of the various advancements in hardware. It relies on raw CPU clock speed and lots of it. Perhaps something around 6+ ghz might run FSX truly "maxed out" on settings

[747VirPilot 0]

Am also running an i5-2500K at 4.6GHz, 16GB of memory and an 'old' EVGA GTX460 mildly overclocked GPU clock at 845MHz, memory at 2000MHz and shader at 1690MHz. Am amazed what the ol' Sandy Bridge will do. Have the sliders farther to the right than I have a right but have spent a stupid amount of time tuning my PC and FSX. 

 

The secret to my success has been to have nvidiaInspector hold the FPS to 30 and set FSX to unlimited for frame rate.  Lots of other tweaks including moving to shader ver 3.0 via a new shader set from Bojote (******* Altuve). And of course a couple of SSDs.

 

If the system is headed for a downfall it will likely be going to 4096 resolution for clouds. Now running clouds at 2048 but my fsx.cfg is set up for 4096. Don't have REX just AS2012. Am running JFKv2 from FSDreamTeam and it does fine. Also TrackIR, UT2, SPAD (software that allows Saitek hardware to run through FSUIPC), Radar Contact,an ACARS program and Firefox to monitor my flight on my VA site. Not a stutter to be seen. Max temp is 64C whilst cooling with a Corsair H80 H2O cooler.

 

Now, finally, me thinks a move to a new video card might be of benefit. At least 2GB of memory, better 4GB.  Moral of the story is getting a discount on an i5 SB...if you can. The last I looked the i5 Sandy is gone from newegg. I have thus far not seen a need for an i7.  FSX is just NOT programmed for HT. So the i5-3570K it is! A GTX670 OC'd w/4GB all the better. Now if you are rolling in $$, the i7-3970X with SIX cores might justify an i7. Were that I had $1,029 to spend. Now you would need a nVidia Titan.......yada, yada.

 

Happy landings.