Worth Upgrading From Sandy Bridge System

[Thomas Andersen 45]

I have a 3 year old Sandy Bridge system with key components beeing a i5 2500K overclocked to 4,1ghz and a GTX 660ti.

 

I am considering upgrading to a completely new Haswell system with 4790K CPU (with turboboost to 4.4 ghz) and coupled with GTX 780 or 770 GPU (I will only use one monitor). 

 

Then the big question is. Will I see a significantly improved performance in FSX with ORBX addons and my PMDG sweethearts? 

Flying the PMDG 737 in the "country side" (eg Alaska and Norway) FPS with my current system is mostly great FPS-wise (most of the time locked at 30 fps). However I would love to have a smoother experience flying in to major urban areas, like Anchorage, Paris, Rome, without it becoming a blurry stutter fest.

 

A few "testimonies" from someone who actually did this upgrade would be great. 

 

Finally, do you think Haswell-E or Broadwell will represent "the promised land" for us die hard FSX simmers, or are we only talking marginal improvements over Haswell Devils Canyon?

 

[Bert Pieke 7,600]

The 4790 will not run much faster than your current OC'd CPU, out of the box, unless you overclock it as well... so keep that in mind!

[KingGhidorah 209]

I didn't upgrade from Sandy Bridge, so maybe you don't want to hear my view, but you have a lot of overclock potential in Sandy Bridge, and you only have yours clocked to 4.1.  If you don't want to spend boatloads of money for a new motherboard and chip right now, you could alternatively look into cooling options in the $100 range so that you can crank your Sandy up to a lot higher speed, for example one of the Corsair closed loop water coolers.  If that doesn't suffice, then it won't go to waste, because you can always get the new chip and motherboard, and use the new cooling device on that.

[twharrell 38]

I upgraded my GPU from a 660Ti to a 770 and there was noticeable improvement. Do that, then OC your 2500k to 4.5 and then you should be set (get a decent CPU cooler, though).

 

Todd

[t4murphy 24]

_{I run my Sandy Bridge 2500K at 4.6 effortlessly on air with voltage set to 1.38. Solid for couple years.  Coupled with Nvidia 770. I will get H2O cooling system some day or maybe not, and go to 5 Gz but happy where I am at now.}

[TheFamilyMan 284]

KingGhidorah has a good point, and not only that such a cooler will fit on a 4790K system without any modifications.  That being said an upgrade won't bring dramatic changes in performance if you can get a stable OC of 4.6Ghz or better.  If you can't, NickN, a long time FSX guru, claims a 4770k clocked at 4.5Ghz is as fast or faster than a 2600k at 5Ghz (which equates for you a 20% performance boost - IMO not exactly dramatic but is very good).  But the silicon lottery associated with Haswell, even with the 4790k, is still iffy so getting 4.5Ghz stable is not 100% guaranteed (but definitely possible).  BTW, the only difference between a 4770k and a 4790k is its packaging.  This info isn't exactly what you asked for, but hopefully it's helpful.

 

I doubt the Haswell-e or Broadwell are the FSX promised land.  IMO FSX is so FUBAR in all its inner workings that no CPU/GPU combination ever can handle it with all its sliders at 100%.  Dense cloud cover still crushes to dust the most capable GPUs on the market.

[Thomas Andersen 45]

Thanks for valuable insights so far. Also please let me know if you think upgrading from a 660ti to 770 will have a significant improvement provided I stay with my 2500K system

[Thomas Andersen 45]

Not to many chimed in here with their opinons. Anyways I took the plunge and ordered a new system. Will let you know whether I think it was worth it.

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

Thanks for valuable insights so far. Also please let me know if you think upgrading from a 660ti to 770 will have a significant improvement provided I stay with my 2500K system

 

Just upgraded from a 460 to a 770 on my i5 4690K @ 4.5GHz system. I was pleasantly surprised that it boosted low end FPS quite significantly in heavy weather/cloud scenarios by about 50%. I'm now seeing not less than 25 FPS at full TH2GO resolution (3840x1024) with complex add-ons pretty much everywhere. Average FPS is around 50. At last, FSX is as smooth as FS9 was on my previous rig, and about 10x prettier!

[Bert Pieke 7,600]

I also upgraded from a 460 to a 770 and was impressed.

 

On a 2500 system, you will not be making full use of the 770s  PICe3 capability, but it will be "futureproofed" for future upgrades..

 

The 770 will basically behave like a 680 on your system.

[dave2013 1,158]

I think it is worth it.  I'm planning on doing an upgrade similar to yours later this year.

 

My current processor is a Sandy Bridge 2700K running at 4.2GHz, and a GTX 670 video card.  I plan on upgrading to a Haswell Refresh 4790K processor overclocked to 4.5GHz, and a GTX 780 video card.

 

If you're going to spend the money on a new video card, then in my opinion you might as well spend about $150 more and get a 780 as it is quite a bit more powerful than the 770.

 

Upgrading to a Haswell, or even Ivy Bridge, also enables PCI Express 3.0, which results in faster communication between the video card and cpu.  I'm not really certain this makes a noticeable difference in the sim, but it certainly can't hurt.

 

I also believe the Haswell Refresh 4790 will indeed be better than its brother the 4770.  The packaging is not the only difference.  Besides the 400MHz increased clock speed right out of the box, and the fact that the new processor is designed and built for those higher clock speeds, there are a few more things.  Here's a quote from Wikipedia:

 

"The CPUs codenamed Devil's Canyon, covering the i5 and i7 K-series stock keeping units (SKUs), employ a new and improved thermal interface material (TIM) called next-generation polymer thermal interface material (NGPTIM). This improved TIM reduces the CPU's operating temperatures and improves the overclocking potential, as something that had been problematic since the introduction of Ivy Bridge. Other changes include a TDP increase to 88 W, increase in decoupling capacitors to help smooth out the delivery of voltages from the fully-integrated voltage regulator (FIVR) to various parts of the CPU, and support for TSX and VT-d instructions previously limited only to non-K-series SKUs."

[Bert Pieke 7,600]

Exactly - the 4790 is a repackaged and overclocked 4770.. and will perform identically at the same clock speed.

[TheFamilyMan 284]

 

 

(snip)
and support for TSX and VT-d instructions previously limited only to non-K-series SKUs.

Crud, so THAT's why intel pulled these instructions from the original Haswell K release: to entice owners to "upgrade" their 4770k.  Sneaky devils (pun intended).  Though as Bert points out, clock for clock there is no speed difference; but getting 4Ghz + turbo out of the box is very nice!

[magnetite 38]

Upgrading to a Haswell, or even Ivy Bridge, also enables PCI Express 3.0, which results in faster communication between the video card and cpu.  I'm not really certain this makes a noticeable difference in the sim, but it certainly can't hurt.

 

You might be able to run higher autogen settings.

[Thomas Andersen 45]

I have used my new system now for a week. In short, I think it was worth it, all though the sort of evolutionary improvement rather than revolutionary might not be worth 2000 euros for everyone. Btw I overclocked the Haswell easily to 4,6ghz with a Noctua premium cooler. I have done 4,7 and 4,8 also but with some crashes. However I just did Asus autotuning so might be more headroom with a little bit of manual tweaking expertise.

 

FSX has never looked better. The 780gtx card displays the scenery so beautifully. I can crank up the AA settings,  and get super clear images with minimal shimmering. I am getting 30 fps locked at big payware airports, like Dubai, Thessaloniki, Gardermoen with PMDGs. I didnt get that before. 

 

As was kind of expected I am still not able to enjoy 30fps flight with PMDG in major urban centers, such as London and Paris. Then I need to dial down the autogen settings.

 

Prepard3d v2.3 also performs just as smooth, if not smoother. But the one thing that keeps me from singing the praises is poor antialiasing. I would say that FSX looks way better in that department, allthough shadows and lightning in prepard3d is better.

 

I still havent implemented Nicks FSX tuning guide, so I am hoping that could boost my results even more.

 

Now I am considering to upgrade my monitor from 27" 1920 to Asus 2560P, or potentially a 4K monitor. How much of a frame rate impact would I see?