XEON vs I7 CPU and AMD

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Hello to you all,

Obviously, I am seeking some input specific to P3Dv4.

I will hopefully be using a combination of XPlane11 and V4 and I am ultimately looking for an upgrade in hardware specifically regarding addressing these two platforms.

Firstly, does anybody know for sure, whether either of these two platforms, either use or plan the use of multiple threads/cores in the future and if so, would the Xeon CPU (which I believe is slower but has more cores) be a better choice over the Intel/AMD CPUs. If, this is the case, would there be any benefit in using a dual CPU XEON set up.  I know in the past there has been no specific benefit for the flight sim community in this set up. Is this still the case with the new 64bit  sims and/or are we ignoring a potential combination because of past performance/price deficiencies?

The new AMD GPUs are also supposedly due for release this month featuring 16gb HBM2 memory which may be a real advantage for the LOD=10 advocates in P3Dv4. It remains to be seen whether the platforms themselves prefer Nvidia or AMD and utilize a specific GPU better. Will this be enough to offset other perceived performance parameters.

Also, the impending Intel core i9 releases will I believe, be brought forward, particularly if the new AMD combination eventuates as a real threat.  Is there going to be a real i9 performance advantage over what is currently available from Intel or just the usual small incremental performance boost?

In summary, just like the new 64bit platforms, the choices appear to have narrowed somewhat and the ramifications of new hardware appear to have become a little more complicated. The world of choice is our oyster (and just as expensive LOL) What does the community think and are these issues really as relevant as I seem to think they are? I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards to you all

Tony chilcott

 

Regards to all

Tony Chilcott

[TechguyMaxC 516]

ALL flight sims still have a primary thread which does *most* of the work.  Most software which requires user input has this limitation.  Software developers may not ever overcome it.

Because of this, the fastest CPU for flight sim always has been, and likely always will be, the one which has the highest clock speed and gets the most amount of work done each clock cycle (instructions per clock aka IPC).  Intel sells Xeons with LOCKED CPU multipliers, meaning these chips have a potential maximum clock speed which is much lower than their consumer counterparts. Additionally, the focus of most Xeon SKUs is to deliver the most performance in parallel workloads (flight sim does not fit into this category of software) so they tend to have far more cores than the consumer chips which *further* limits clock speed.  Therefore, a Xeon would be a poor buy for flight sim.  

Right now the fastest CPU you can buy for flight sim is the 7700k.  In a week or so that could change as Intel is releasing new chips for their newest HEDT (high end desktop) platform, X299.  If these chips reliably overclock to 5GHz or so, thanks to their architectural advantages compared to the 7700k and its ilk, they will be faster AND have more cores.  So if some day a developer is able to find a solution to the problem of serialism in software you will be prepared by purchasing one of these chips.  

The bad news is that these new chips (and the motherboards which support them) cost a lot of money relative to the 7700k and its supporting motherboards.  Of course, compared to the Xeon chips you were thinking of the cost isn't that bad.  

[himmelhorse 1,276]

TechguyMaxC,

Well that certainly cleared up a lot my of misconceptions.

I have no fiscal backup to support buying the new x299 systems so it looks like a decision to buy the i7 7700k is the best way to go .... That is a relief.

I guess now the wait is just for the new AMD GPU release ... see if the more 16gb VRAM is going to outweigh the 1080ti performance.  It is going to be very very interesting. I would further appreciate your thoughts on that aspect although until release, it is all speculation which should probably be avoided. 

Thank you so much for putting that to bed for me.

Regards

Tony