Upgrade or not to i7 4770k for Prepar 3d v2.2?

[papaja 16]

I actually have an i5 2500k at 4ghz but i am not very satisfied with it performance in prepar 3d v2.2 i am getting like 18 - 22 fps in the pdmg 737 in Dubai with high settings(note that i have also aplied some tweaks to the game). What i want to know is if an i7 4770k will be able to hold over 30 fps in this type of situations and how much extra performance will i get over the i5 2500k. Considering this i will take my decision if i upgrade my cpu or not. Just to add, i  have a gtx670.

 

Any type of information will be very helpful

 

 

Thanks

Ricardo

[Noel 4,502]

I actually have an i5 2500k at 4ghz but i am not very satisfied with it performance in prepar 3d v2.2 i am getting like 18 - 22 fps in the pdmg 737 in Dubai with high settings(note that i have also aplied some tweaks to the game). What i want to know is if an i7 4770k will be able to hold over 30 fps in this type of situations and how much extra performance will i get over the i5 2500k. Considering this i will take my decision if i upgrade my cpu or not. Just to add, i  have a gtx670.

 

Any type of information will be very helpful

 

 

Thanks

Ricardo

 

Hi Ricardo,

 

In short, absolutely not.  Changing from i5 2550K to i7 4770K will get you a single-core performance increase of...14% or thereabouts.   The i5 2550K will overclock slightly better typically.  So IF your PMDG 737 is now doing an average of 20 or so, and CPU core1 is operating at 100% on the main thread, then the best you can get from this 14% increase is around 22.8, if that.  That, I would argue, WILL NOT change your of satisfaction appreciably.

 

If you're really after top performance, consider an entire new build, and add the best Nvidia GPU you can possibly afford.  Next, strongly consider Ivy Bridge E, hexacore.   I'm guessing it is doing slightly better than my SB-E hexacore.  I will argue i7 hexacore processors, overclocked and running w/ HT enabled and AffinityMask of 4094 or 4095, will get you the most a CPU can offer for P3D V2.2.  This must be combined w/ a potent graphics card, and you will want to build in PSU headroom to be able to SLI your high end graphics card.  Not for initial set up necessarily as they haven't quite optimized SLI as far as I've heard.  Add to this a very fast SATA 3 SSD or two, and you'll get the most you can.   Will you get 30 fps in the setting you describe, NGX?  Doubtful, unless you change some settings.  I can't really speak to the PMDG 737 in P3D 2.2 as I don't use it in the sim.

 

If these purchases are over budget, save your money until you can do it right.  I made this choice jumping up from Q9650 Core2 Quad 1.5 years ago, and it's still going very strong.  Nvidia GTX Titan.  I don't think you need the 6Gb of video ram, and least absolutely not for 2.2. I bought it 'just in case.'

[papaja 16]

Thanks Noel, your information is very helpful.

 

I think i will buy an Ivy Bridge E, hexacore i7 4930k.

 

Thanks

Ricardo

[Noel 4,502]

Definitely consider it Ricardo.   Whatever you pick up get some decent cooling.  I opted for non-water cooled for a few reasons, and ended up w/ Noctua D-14 I think it is, and it's fine for my level of overclocking which as you may know when HT is enabled and the app is using it temps do go up.  I run the SB-E at 4.3Ghz w/ minimal voltage increase, and though it does overclock well above that there it's not really worth the added heat and loss of efficiency for very modest gains in subjective performance.  What's really fabulous about HT enabled AND using all of the cores is the texture loading rate is as good as it going to get, and it's good.   The improvements coming in P3D 2.3 will include more work on each core/virtual core I believe, so this is good.  Also, XPlane 64bit can utilize multicores as well, for certain tasks.   Single core performance for the higher end Haswell 4 cores will be slightly better, but you're trading that in for less cores to exploit w/ HT enabled.