Saving some pennies for my habit and need some good advise. I can't afford (or can't wait) to change both my CPU (which will mean my Mobo as well) and my GPU, so when looking at my present specs, where would my money be better spent:

 

Go with a new 4770k c/w new Mobo and stay with my 1.5g GTX 580 sc, or go with a new 3g. GTX 780 sc and stay with my 2600k?

 

Thanks,

 

 

Go with a new 4770k c/w new Mobo and stay with my 1.5g GTX 580 sc, or go with a new 3g. GTX 780 sc and stay with my 2600k?

 

Well this would depend entirely on what your goals are, and that would stem from what you will be doing w/ your machine.   Haswell K will give you ~15% more performance over your 2600K, at the same clock speed.  It appears Haswell K o/c to 4.5 easily.  You're listed at 4.4Ghz on your SB-K.  Likely, you will be able to clock SB-K similarly as Haswell K, at least close.  So now you're thinking new processor, new motherboard.  I know from my former 280GTX card w/ 1gb vram that upgrading your video card if you stick w/ the one display will not improve total performance appreciably, as your 580 has 1.5gb already and that is ample for your one display, and further, your 580GTX should be quite decent esp compared to my old 280GTX.  I have the same res display.   If you're after better gaming performance for other titles besides FSX, then maybe the 780 makes sense, but it really isn't going to add much for FSX.   Presumably you're planning on keeping your DRAM.  So, for your proposed new CPU/mainboard/GPU, coming in at ~$1,000, you're looking at maybe 15-18% performance boost.  

 

So, given this, what is your lowest frame rate (that's just one parameter of 'performance') that you're seeing in the most complex aircraft, scenery, add on terminals, etc?  If the answer is 15 fps, then your $1000 upgrade will get you a grand total of:  17.4 fps.  Both of these frame rates are pretty poor.  I think if you are looking at FSX only, you could do mainboard/CPU and cut the cost of your upgrade in half.  If you use many other game titles, then you might also add the GPU.   

 

Good Luck!

For FSX/P3D only, definitely the CPU. However keep in mind that the improvement would be very small. Like Noel says, we're talking just a few more FPS here. Also for FSX/P3D, a 4670K would be nearly as good. The sim doesn't use Hyper Threading (which only the i7's have), and the 2MB less L3 cache doesn't seem to make a difference. Without HT, temps will be lower by 5-10C in stress tests, making it easier to chase higher clock speeds. You can of course disable HT on the i7, but then why pay the extra money for it?

 

Personally I would wait for Ivy Bridge E or possibly Haswell E. They will be the new enthusiast platforms.

 

If you play other sims/games at all, a new video card would be a much better choice and would result in big improvements.

Thanks guys. I am not and don't intend to use my FSX rig for anything else in the way of games.

 

When reading the literature on the 4770k/4670k, I see no huge advances over my 2600k, in fact if I had done my homework on my last major upgrade, I would be running a 2500k right now and I am very happy with my FPS.

 

The reason I asked the question was to do with the fact that I am buying more and more great FSDT, Flightbeam etc scenery and with the PMDG NGX and soon to be T7, I am looking at very detailed products texture wise and high AA settings etc, etc, so I am looking more at smooth performance and crisp displays as a priority.

 

Not being very knowledgable on the fine details of this technology, I didn't know if maybe I was missing something with my research on the 4770k, or the possible advantages of a better GPU when it comes to the high quality add on products that I seem to be adding more and more.

 

Regards,

Look at it this way:  FSX loves CPU performance; a new GPU will not increase that.  Is a little extra eye candy alone worth the high buy-in price?  One can get a decent mobo and a 4770k for the same price, which definitely yields more CPU power.   But as mentioned, the gains will not be dramatic over your current system.  Also the 780 is pci-e 3.0 which your 1155 mobo probably does not support though it'll work fine in a pci-e 2.0 slot (most say it makes no difference).  Waiting is also a good alternative considering the bang per buck situation.

The performance increase would be so small you could probably get the same degree of performance increase by a small tweak of the cfg or by changing a couple of values in the FSX CP.

This proves the old adage that no matter the hardware, it is possible to load up FSX with addons to the point where performance suffers..

 

You'll just have to back off the visual detail if you want fluid performance - and that has been true since the first releases of Flight Simulator, 25 years ago :rolleyes:

 

 

The performance increase would be so small you could probably get the same degree of performance increase by a small tweak of the cfg or by changing a couple of values in the FSX CP.

 

This is so true!  And another aspect of this:  when you add more hardware capability, even 10-15% increase, I think people often start adding a little more burden by moving a few more sliders harder to the right, and voila, you're exactly where you were before you spent the money.  Sigh!

 

Being downright dedicated to the concept that FSX is a dead end platform because it is incapable of fully exploiting modern hardware thru multithreading, more current graphical APIs, native 64-bit, I decided and I am very happy I did, to upgrade my last platform which served me very well for almost 6 years, w/ a system designed for a future simulator, or at least XP 64-bit, and maybe P3D if it goes 64-bit, which it appears to be doing at least incrementally.   I therefore put together a SB-E hexacore system, 32gb of DDR 2400, 500Gb SSD, and a GTX Titan graphics card.  This is silly unused power for FSX, though it really running FSX very well compared to my old Q9650 system, but still, you have to make a compromise here or there w/ .cfg settings, but as is said here this is always the case, and will be w/ IB-E and Haswell-E, just a wee bit less so.  We need a better simulator engine!  I think for sure this will come--just look at how long FSX lives, how many 3rd party devs have founded durable companies supporting it, and though it's still a niche market is proven durable.  Plus--so much is already known about programming a simulator engine compared to the earlier days of development, and every day more and more skilled programmers come along looking for work and projects.   We just need to introduce Donald Trump to our hobby--about .0005% of his estate would cover the development of the most incredible multithreaded 64-bit simulator core engine w/ all the fixin's one would hope for!

Hee hee, absolutely. The scenario is, and we've all been there, 'up' the hardware, move sliders to the right or tweak a little further and hey, guess what... we're back to square one!

Hee hee, absolutely. The scenario is, and we've all been there, 'up' the hardware, move sliders to the right or tweak a little further and hey, guess what... we're back to square one!

Soo true. Can still remember how I was fiddling with the sliders on my single core AMD64 system until I found a performance level that was acceptable. I managed then and was quite pleased. I still manage now, but the sliders are a lot higher, and the aircrafts and scenery more demanding. And thankfully it looks a lot better as well.

The sim doesn't use Hyper Threading

Well, it does. But not for increased FPS. However, if you are a fan of photo scenery like me, you can make good use of Hyperthreading so you get crisp ground textures. Personally I'd never get an i5 just because FSX can make use of Hyperthreading. But if you're after more FPS in a complex aircraft it's useless.