Hi,

 

I have a bit of money that I am interested in using to upgrade my PC for P3D v3. I have been doing a bit of research, but I wanted to hear some opinions more specifically about P3D. I am wondering should I consider upgrading my current HDD to an SDD hard drive, or should I upgrade my CPU? Which would be more beneficial for my sim? 

 

Thanks, Roarke

Roarke,

 

What are your current computer specs? It's tough to suggest something if we don't know what you already have.

Roarke,

 

What are your current computer specs? It's tough to suggest something if we don't know what you already have.

My current specs:

i7-4790 (Locked) @ 3.6 Ghz

Gigabyte GTX 1070

8GB RAM

Gigabyte H97-HD3 Motherboard

 

I was leaning towards upgrading my CPU as wasn't exactly satisfied with my performance, because I think it may be bottle-necking my GPU?

 

Roarke

the problem with a cpu upgrade is, you will have to upgrade your motherboard, and ram,there is no upgrade unless you plan on going with a 4790k.you would certainly benefit in loading times with an ssd, thats the cheapest route and probably the most benefit unless you want to replace major hardware, there is a broadwell cpu for the the 1150 socket, but nothing that would benefit over what you have, i have the 4790k and a gtx 1070, with ssd's and p3d runs fine.

you still can get one extra GHz out of your current processor (by overclocking it using a good air cooler) and you will have noticeable  performance improvement with out spending a dime. (well, maybe a good SSD with processor overclocking will be great).

you still can get one extra GHz out of your current processor (by overclocking it using a good air cooler) and you will have noticeable  performance improvement with out spending a dime. (well, maybe a good SSD with processor overclocking will be great).

I don't believe you can overclock non-k Intel processors?

 

the problem with a cpu upgrade is, you will have to upgrade your motherboard, and ram,there is no upgrade unless you plan on going with a 4790k.you would certainly benefit in loading times with an ssd, thats the cheapest route and probably the most benefit unless you want to replace major hardware, there is a broadwell cpu for the the 1150 socket, but nothing that would benefit over what you have, i have the 4790k and a gtx 1070, with ssd's and p3d runs fine.

That was the CPU I was considering, as *ideally* I wouldn't have to upgrade motherboard etc?

I would go for a SSD at first. They are pretty cheap... ~500GB are easily enough for Windows + P3D... After this, you will see what happens :-)

Can you overclock with a non-Z chipset? I can't remember.

 

I'd echo the SSD suggestion, along with another 8 or 16GB of RAM. It might not do a lot for your sim, but the computer will be a lot more responsive in regular use.

 

Cheers!
 

Luke

You have a similar set up to me. I also have the 4790 (non K). My understanding was that a non-K can not be overclocked, so we are stuck at 3.6.

 

I was thinking about getting a 6700k. But then found out that I would also need a new motherboard and DDR4 RAM, which priced the upgrade at $600+. So I decided for now it is not worth it, as the performance increase would probably not be worth the $600 price tag.

 

You should be able to slot in a 4790k in with no problems. If your existing 4790 is in good condition and you sell it used, it may only be a net $150 cost to upgrade. Then if you overclock it to ~4.4+, you may get a few in FPS increase. Remember to get a decent cooler too if you go that route.

 

Another "relatively" cheap upgrade would be a Samsung 850 500gb SSD - they can be had for less than $150 now.

 

I would be interested to see what advice you get as I have been procrastinating a 4790k / 5820k/ 6700k upgrade and trying to understand if any of these will really make much difference.

if you can deal with your cpu and go the ssd route, skylake has already been out a year.Kabylake which is a 7700k will be out the first couple months of 2017 with a whole new chipset.i would wait if i were you. my current 4790k i plan on selling when kabylake comes out with the z270 chipset.if you do go the 4790k route you should be able to sell your current 4790 on ebay for 200 bucks.you can catch a new 4790k in a sale for about 300 on newegg.i am running my 4790k at 4.7 ghz with a max temp of 65c.what i understand cannonlake comes after kabylake,8700k and it will be the first mainstream 6 core cpu,i am kinda sitting back and watching what happens.

 

 

I was thinking about getting a 6700k. But then found out that I would also need a new motherboard and DDR4 RAM, which priced the upgrade at $600+. So I decided for now it is not worth it, as the performance increase would probably not be worth the $600 price tag.

 

The DDR4 memory is where the big boost in performance comes from. I moved from a 4790K to the 6700K for that reason, my DRAM is running at 3.3 GHz and the CPU at 4.7 GHz.... as new chips are released, the existing upper tier chips become less expensive.  I've been on SSD drives for two builds and decided to try the Intel NVMe 800Gb drive to see if that massive multi-threading would help... nope.  Probably a big deal with servers but not for workstations.