Hi all.

 

Does Prepar3D need an overclocked CPU like FSX? Can 3.6 Ghz handle it or do I need to overclock?

 

And last question, if I overclock over 4 Ghz, will it be a noticeable difference?

 

Thanks

Need and Nice, 

 

I still gain 20-30% in boost when O/C the CPU (I7-4770K@4,7)

 

Michael

It does. Prepar3D 2.3 is still heavy on the CPU like FSX.

I went from 3.6 on my older pc to 4.8 on my new pc build, plus SSD, and all I can say is it's FAST in comparison.

Needed.   Going from 3.8ghz (my standard Turbo) to 4.3ghz (Manual OCing) I get another 8 FPS in most situations.    Overclocking always makes a difference and if you Overclock your system wrong it can make a BAD difference so be careful before you start pushing that number upward.

Not needed here. Runs fine now on my "old" (2010 vintage) unclocked PC.

I can easily make P3D V2.3 CPU limited on certain situations so faster CPU certainly helps in some cases. In fact CPU clock speed is not the factor, but IPC that the CPU is capable of. Performance can be thus improved with either CPU clock speed or improving the computational logic in the chip. There are other factors affecting this like cache speed or sizes, but those are the main factors. For example, a 3.8GHz Core i7-3930K wipes the floor with a P4 from the mid 2000's clocked at the same speed. How meaningful OC is another thing. I consider it "free" computational power and do it in any case flightsims or not, but the improvement is pretty much linear at best and with every real life software it is more than usually less than that, as things such as memory speed and GPU affect heavily on the total performance.

My current CPU speed is 3.5. I can overclock it to max. 4.0 with my current cooler. I can't buy a new cooler for now.

 

So, should I OC to 4 will it makes difference? I'm worried 'cause when I oced to 3.8 I couldn't see much difference from 3.5.

 

What's your suggestions?

I have a 3770K with a Titan.

Before it was OC at 4.5, now is to default: no difference.

The essential thing is to set the XMP profile for the RAM in the BIOS.

My current CPU speed is 3.5. I can overclock it to max. 4.0 with my current cooler. I can't buy a new cooler for now.

 

So, should I OC to 4 will it makes difference? I'm worried 'cause when I oced to 3.8 I couldn't see much difference from 3.5.

 

What's your suggestions?

 

When single-core performance of your CPU hits 100% utilization in P3D V2.3 or FSX at 3.5Ghz, and you increase it to 4.0 you can expect somewhere less than but approaching 14% increase in total performance from the CPU side of issue.  This of course assumes the settings you're using aren't limited by your GPU, i.e. that the CPU is the primarily limiting factor in the specific situation you're evaluating.   This means then if you are hitting 100% on the main thread core and you are seeing let's say a frame rate of 20, AND the GPU is not the limiter, you can expect frame rate to increase to around 22-23 frames per second, or ~14% increase.   This won't make a huge difference, but it will be detectable likely by you subjectively.   There are situations in P3D V2.x that behave differently in this regard than FSX, for example I've seen situations where frame rate is quite limited and increasing clock speed on the CPU DOES NOT increase frame rate to this proportional degree, AND GPU utilization is nowhere near maxed out.   But in general, you will see this sort of proportional increase.   When you see someone say, 'I see 'x' amount of fps increase when I over clock, take that with a grain of salt because it always about the percentage increase in frame rate, not a fixed amount of frame rate increase w/ overclocking.   Put another way, if your base frame rate at 3.5Ghz is 50fps, and you increase to 4.0Ghz, you can expect the same 14% increase, so 57fps when the main thread was running at 100%.

 

 

This means then if you are hitting 100% on the main thread core and you are seeing let's say a frame rate of 20, AND the GPU is not the limiter, you can expect frame rate to increase to around 22-23 frames per second, or ~14% increase.

 

I do OC my CPUs and that about all I see as an improvement, somewhere between 10-15%, as long as I don't max out the IQ settings that are GPU limited. OCing is not the ultimate performance panacea and one can certainly make matters worse, as is evidenced by the recent " P3d periodic stuttering" thread. In that thread, the OC was causing the CPU to overheat and throttle. It doesn't take more than a little abuse like that to reduce the useful life of your CPU and possibly other components.

 

 

It doesn't take more than a little abuse like that to reduce the useful life of your CPU and possibly other components

 

I agree.  I stay under 1.34v and if it isn't stable at that or less I accept that and leave it at that and be happy.  The point of diminishing returns approaches at an exponential rate as far as temperature and wattage goes.   Fortunately I have effective cooling.  I can run w/ HT enabled, hexacore SB-E at 4.53Ghz and keep temps under 54C at peak load even on all cores.  I prefer to run on notch under that though because it just does not make an appreciable difference and I like to be short of the exponential jump when you put in too much juice even w/ cooling.