Hi all,

 

My rig is now >3 years old, and while I'm still fairly happy with it, I'm looking to squeeze out some more performance before I rebuild a whole new machine.

 

I currently have:

 

i7 2600k, OC'ed to 4.6 GHz

GTX580, 1.5 GB

8 GB RAM (4 x 2 GB, DDR3 PC10700, 9-9-9-24)

P8P67 Pro Motherboard

OCZ 120GB SSD (FS only)

1 TB 7200 rpm HDD (Win7 x64)

 

I mainly have three questions:

 

1.  I recently made the switch from FSX to P3Dv2.  It's my understanding that P3D makes more use of the GPU than FSX, so would I see noticeably better fps in heavy scenery environments with a GTX980?

 

2.  I know that my RAM is archaic, and slow.  What specifically would better RAM give me in terms of P3D performance, and is it worth the money?

 

3.  I'm running out of space on the SSD that P3D is installed on.  Any disadvantages to buying a second 120 GB SSD and offload all addon scenery to that (instead of buying a single 240 GB SSD to replace my existing one)?

 

 

With the P3D sliders in the "medium" range (and not using any "new" P3D features such as cloud shadows, etc.), I get pretty solid performance at the moment.  The sim runs smoothly, but with heavy weather, addon scenery, and addon airliners, the fps drop to 12-15 in situations like this (but it's still smooth, and "flyable"). I'll also occasionally get black textures when changing views, and have to wait a couple seconds for them to reload.

 

I'd appreciate any advice on whether it's worth upgrading any of those components, or if I'd be better off waiting and building a new machine from scratch in a year or so...

 

Thanks,

 

Kyle R.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm in about the same boat as you, but my OC has died to only 4 ghz and I have a gtx 570

 

Honestly just wait for Intel Skylake - a new micro architecture coming out

 

I'm planning on getting a gtx 970 now because P3D and XP10 abuse my GPU usage hehe.

 

I don't think faster ram on our dated boards would do much

 

SSD - should work but I got a 500GB Evo instead because I ran into the same situation

 

If you had to upgrade now the 4790K (or 4690k) is the best cpu for FSX/P3D at this time