New build for P3D

[olivermitch99 0]

Evening all.

Currently interested in purchasing a PC solely for P3D. So far, I've found the following at a reasonable price:

• Intel I7 7700K @ 4.2Ghz (with turbo to 4.5Ghz)
• GTX 1080 8GB
• 16GB Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000mhz Performance Ram
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z270X-Ultra Gaming

AKA, https://www.freshtechsolutions.co.uk/intel-i7-7700k-2tb-16gb-ddr4-gtx-1080-8gb-blitz-computer-gaming-pc.html?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIycnjqPja2wIVcDPTCh2pHwOAEAQYBCABEgKE7PD_BwE

What are your thoughts on this? What more/less do I need? I have the objective of being to able to fly the FSLabs A320X mainly from FlyTampa Athens, along with ORBX Global and possibly ORBX Vector, ActiveSky and Active Sky Cloud Art, PTA Assistant, GSX and any other airport scenery being mainly freeware, say at 30-40FPS. I'm gonna mainly be doing European flying to/from Athens.

I'm thinking of looking for something similar with an SSD and better cooling. Thoughts?

Thanks,

Oliver Mitchell.

[johnnycrockett 43]

That setup will get the job done however it is worth considering the 8700K which is 6 cores as opposed to the 7700k which is 4 cores. Just a bit more future proof. If you are going to overclock the CPU then certainly look into some good cooling which will help with better overclocks.

As for SSD, personally it didn't make a difference going from a HDD to SSD to the performance in P3D but loading times for everything else were significantly shorter and so was well worth it.

For reference, I am running a 7700K @5ghz, GTX1070 and am happy with the performance - depending on your resolution you might also want to consider a GTX1080ti.

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

I just got rid of a system like that - http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7510617  and the link shows my benchmarks (rated as UFO).  The proposed system will run P3DV4.2 well and I would have kept mine except I decided to upgrade to the i7 8086K CPU as it can be set at 5.0GHz by just selecting Optimal Defaults in the BIOS.  It is therefore stable.  Your proposed system would only get up to 4.5GHz with Optimal Default settings but it can be overclocked to 5.0GHz but you may have some stability issues if you are not knowledgeable of overclocking.  Even at 4.5GHz, it will perform well.  Your video card is not the optimal but will work.  The 1080ti is pretty expensive for many users.

I was able to run P3Dv4.2 between 40 and 60 fps and many times it averaged in the 70's during some flights.  But it all depends on the scenery and your P3D settings no matter how powerful your computer.

I agree with Johnny that you could future proof your purchase by getting the i7 8700K.  Looking at Google, there are prices for the i7 8700K that are very close to the price of the i7 7700K.  But, if you got the 8700K, you would also have to buy the Z370 MB.  But it is probably worth researching.

If you can afford a couple of M.2's as shown in my benchmark above, that would be worth getting too.  They might be dropping down in price.  The Z270 and Z370 MB's can handle two of them.

[olivermitch99 0]

1 hour ago, johnnycrockett said:

That setup will get the job done however it is worth considering the 8700K which is 6 cores as opposed to the 7700k which is 4 cores. Just a bit more future proof. If you are going to overclock the CPU then certainly look into some good cooling which will help with better overclocks.

As for SSD, personally it didn't make a difference going from a HDD to SSD to the performance in P3D but loading times for everything else were significantly shorter and so was well worth it.

For reference, I am running a 7700K @5ghz, GTX1070 and am happy with the performance - depending on your resolution you might also want to consider a GTX1080ti.

 

Cheers Johnny!

I'm willing to go for the 8700K as I would like this system to last a while, so cheers for that. Regarding the 1080Ti, I doubt I'd go near 4K anyway so I don't think I'd want to pay the extra money if it's not going to be fully utilised.

43 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

I just got rid of a system like that - http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/7510617  and the link shows my benchmarks (rated as UFO).  The proposed system will run P3DV4.2 well and I would have kept mine except I decided to upgrade to the i7 8086K CPU as it can be set at 5.0GHz by just selecting Optimal Defaults in the BIOS.  It is therefore stable.  Your proposed system would only get up to 4.5GHz with Optimal Default settings but it can be overclocked to 5.0GHz but you may have some stability issues if you are not knowledgeable of overclocking.  Even at 4.5GHz, it will perform well.  Your video card is not the optimal but will work.  The 1080ti is pretty expensive for many users.

I was able to run P3Dv4.2 between 40 and 60 fps and many times it averaged in the 70's during some flights.  But it all depends on the scenery and your P3D settings no matter how powerful your computer.

I agree with Johnny that you could future proof your purchase by getting the i7 8700K.  Looking at Google, there are prices for the i7 8700K that are very close to the price of the i7 7700K.  But, if you got the 8700K, you would also have to buy the Z370 MB.  But it is probably worth researching.

If you can afford a couple of M.2's as shown in my benchmark above, that would be worth getting too.  They might be dropping down in price.  The Z270 and Z370 MB's can handle two of them.

Jim, I appeciate the advice - I'm going to look into the 8086K as you've said. Would you say the difference in FPS between the 7700K and the 8086K would be subtle, or instead a rather large leap? And the same from the 8700K to the 8086K?

Thanks to all!

Oliver Mitchell

[Jim Young 2,356]

I would not recommend the 8086K as it is more expensive than the 8700K and they are about the same except the 8086K can be set to 5.0GHz with the Optimal Default setting and the 8700K can only get to 4.7GHz with the Optimal Default setting.  That's not much of a difference to pay about $75 more for the 8086K than the 8700K but many like the fact they can have a stable 5.0GHz system with no need to overclock (except the memory).

The difference between the i7 7700K and the i7 8086 is that the 8086 is about 17% faster http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-7700K-vs-Intel-Core-i7-8086K/3647vsm516988.  That's a pretty good size jump in performance but nothing to write home about.  As you can see in the link, the i7 8700K superseded the i7 7700K.  The i7-8086K is only about 4% faster than the i7 8700K so nothing there to say the i7 8086K is the cpu for me!

[martin-w 3,234]

Quote

the 8086K can be set to 5.0GHz with the Optimal Default setting

 

Except (as I said in the other thread) it will be only ONE core boosted to 5 GHz, and only if ONE core is active. And given that P3D utilises more than one core, I am doubtful you will see 5 GHz in P3D with optimised defaults. 

If one core is active you will see 5 GHz, if a mere two cores are active it will drop to 4.6 GHz and if three active 4.5 GHz, four and five cores will give you 4.4 GHz and finally 6 cores will give you a mere 4.3 GHz.

And the 8700K at a single core Turbo Boost of 4.7 is only 300 MHz less than the single core Turbo Boost of the 8086K, and that equates to a very small increase in frame rate in the sim. Doubt you'd even notice. 

Where the 8086K is advantageous is in the fact that it's slightly better binned. So with MCE on and thus 5 GHz on all cores, lower voltage and thus temp is likely. The 8086K should give you a somewhat easier time with MCE on and with manual overclocking... that's all. 

If the 8086k had had a much more aggressive Turbo Boost table across the board, it would have been a better scenario. But that was never going to happen because the TDP is identical to 8700K.

 

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

35 minutes ago, martin-w said:

Except (as I said in the other thread) it will be only ONE core boosted to 5 GHz, and only if ONE core is active. And given that P3D utilises more than one core, I am doubtful you will see 5 GHz in P3D with optimised defaults. 

Respectfully I have to disagree with you.  It has been reported ALL cores can be set to 5.0.  In any case, many simmers run P3D with ONE core as they set their setting to the Optimal Defaults.  It is a whole lot better than the duo-core systems in 2011!!  And, since when does P3D use more than one core?  I know that when I run resource monitor for all of the CPU's I have used (2600K, 4770K, 7700K and now 8086), it is showing all cores are being used even if I have it at optimal defaults so not understanding your allegation.

You also stated in a previous post you are not a simmer.  You don't even run P3D and you make these allegations?  What's up?

Going golfing....  It's 0536 here in the USA.

[19dcavscout 39]

8 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

Respectfully I have to disagree with you.  It has been reported ALL cores can be set to 5.0.  In any case, many simmers run P3D with ONE core as they set their setting to the Optimal Defaults.  It is a whole lot better than the duo-core systems in 2011!!  And, since when does P3D use more than one core?  I know that when I run resource monitor for all of the CPU's I have used (2600K, 4770K, 7700K and now 8086), it is showing all cores are being used even if I have it at optimal defaults so not understanding your allegation.

You also stated in a previous post you are not a simmer.  You don't even run P3D and you make these allegations?  What's up?

Going golfing....  It's 0536 here in the USA.

A stock 8700k can hit 5.0Ghz on all cores with little to no issues. By setting the 8086k to run at 5.0 Ghz on all cores, you are in fact overclocking it. It does not come stock to run all cores at 5.0 Ghz. Other than for the nostalgia of the Intel chip, a normal 8700k is a way better deal.

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12945/the-intel-core-i7-8086k-review

 

As for the OP, look for an 8600k if you don't want to spend the money on the 8700k. The extra cores are going to be worth it. Honestly the price seems really high for what you are getting.

Edited June 18, 2018 by 19dcavscout

[aerostar 42]

I'll just chip in with my recent experience with the 8700k...  I managed to get a Benchmark score on the free version of 'PASSMARK'   https://www.passmark.com/products/pt.htm   of

 

The 8700k is running stable (so far) at 5.2 Ghz in P3Dv4 on all cores (6 cores / 12 HyperThreads, Group Tuning),   (CPU 5.0 x BCLK 104)...  looking at the global benchmark comparisons the 8700k seems to match the 8086k when overclocked. I have a 280mm water cooling system to help keep the temps in check...

Here's the - 3DMark 11 - test result  https://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/12817220

 

PS -  Jim,  bet you did have to reactivate WIN10 or you will... check your licence status.

Edited June 18, 2018 by aerostar

[olivermitch99 0]

Okay, so bottom line the question is apparent: would the sim perform better with the four-core i7 7700k @ 4.2GHz with Turbo to 4.5GHz, the six-core i7 @ 8700K 3.7GHz with Turbo to 4.7GHz or the six-core i7 8086K @4GHz with Turbo to 5GHz?

And to confirm then, the 8700K can run to 5GHz without overclocking on ALL cores, but the 8086K can only achieve 5GHz on ONE core?

Thanks,

Oliver Mitchell

[John_Tavendale 453]

The 8086K is basically a custom picked 8700K.

Is it worth $75 extra? Probably not. I'd defiantly go for a 8700K over a 7700K if buying new now.

[19dcavscout 39]

25 minutes ago, olivermitch99 said:

Okay, so bottom line the question is apparent: would the sim perform better with the four-core i7 7700k @ 4.2GHz with Turbo to 4.5GHz, the six-core i7 @ 8700K 3.7GHz with Turbo to 4.7GHz or the six-core i7 8086K @4GHz with Turbo to 5GHz?

And to confirm then, the 8700K can run to 5GHz without overclocking on ALL cores, but the 8086K can only achieve 5GHz on ONE core?

Thanks,

Oliver Mitchell

Any increase in speed over what Intel ships the chip with is considered an overclock. Stock, as in without modifying anything in the bios, the 8086k will be a bit faster than a stock 8700k. 

8086k:
Core 1: 5.0 Ghz
Core 2: 4.6 Ghz
Core 3: 4.5 Ghz
Core 4: 4.4 Ghz
Core 5: 4.4 Ghz
Core 6: 4.3 Ghz

8700k:
Core 1: 4.7 Ghz
Core 2: 4.6 Ghz
Core 3: 4.5 Ghz
Core 4: 4.4 Ghz
Core 5: 4.4 Ghz
Core 6: 4.3 Ghz

As you can see the chip speeds are almost identical. You are better off buying an 8700k, getting is delidded from someplace like siolicon lottery, and overclocking the chip to run on 5.0-5.2 Ghz on all cores. It would cost the same. Especially considering the 8086k does not come delidded from the factory and is still a heat machine. The extra 300 mhz is not really worth the extra $75, especially since you can get that performance out of most 8700k's. The 8086k is all about marketing.

I would take an 8700k over a 7700k any day of the week if your budget can afford it. Hell the 8600k is better than the 7700k and is cheaper. Look elsewhere for the money and stay away from buying a new 7700k. 

[martin-w 3,234]

3 hours ago, Jim Young said:

Respectfully I have to disagree with you.  It has been reported ALL cores can be set to 5.0. 

 

Well yes, certainly they can ... by switching on MCE (multi core enhancement) or manually overclocking. But that wasn't what you said though.

You said... "the 8086K can be set to 5.0 GHz with the "Optimal Default setting". So no, setting to "optimal defaults" will not yield 5 GHz on all cores, it will most likely not yield 5 GHz in a multi threaded application on just one core either for the reasons I outlined. You can read exactly the same thing as I have related to you in the links at the bottom

At optimised defaults the CPU will act in accordance with Intel's Turbo Boost rules. One core will be 5 GHz and if "only one core" is active.

You have the Maximus X, so when you set XMP a box will pop up asking you if you wish to do so, if you don't, MCE will be off. You have to choose to switch on MCE.

 

Quote

 

 

Quote

 And, since when does P3D use more than one core? 

 

I wouldn't know as I don't sim anymore, but these guys below seem to think so. But I'm not going to argue about that. Just pointing out that "optimised defaults" will not yield 5 GHz on all cores or even on one core if it's an app that's utilising multiple cores.  

 

 

Quote

 

 

Quote

it is showing all cores are being used even if I have it at optimal defaults so not understanding your allegation.

 

Yes, all cores will be used if you have your board set to optimised defaults. But we weren't talking about all cores being used. We were talking about the max Turbo Boost frequency of 5 GHz for the 8086K. You said that with "optimised defaults" the CPU can be set to 5 GHz. I'm pointing out that optimised defaults won't do that. Optimised defaults will give you 5 GHz on only ONE core, and only if ONE core is being utilised. That's how Intel Turbo Boost works. Thus... if you have an application that is utilising more than one core, you wont see 5 GHz at all with optimised defaults. You will only see 5 GHz on ONE core if a single core is active. However... if you have MCE on (so not optimised defaults) all cores will be 5 GHz.

 

Quote

You also stated in a previous post you are not a simmer.  You don't even run P3D and you make these allegations?  What's up?

 

I was a simmer till a while ago. Taking a break. They aren't "allegations" they are merely facts in regard to how Intel Turbo Boost works. You can get the same information from here...

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12945/the-intel-core-i7-8086k-review

 

https://techreport.com/review/33786/intel-core-i7-8086k-cpu-reviewed

 

To recap...

At the boards "optimised defaults", Intel turbo Boost rules apply. So only one core will boost to the max Turbo frequency if only one core is active. If multiple cores are active you wont see max turbo frequency on any core, the CPU will drop to a lower frequency. 

If Asus MCE (or other manufactures equivalent) is switched on, ( so not optimised defaults) all cores will be clocked to the max Turbo frequency no matter how many cores are active. And the board manufactures auto rules will set voltage accordingly.

A while ago Asus were criticised for setting the BIOS to auto for MCE, and some were finding MCE on by default and thus hitting max turbo on all cores. Some with inadequate cooling were seeing excessive temps as a result. thus, MCE is now off in the BIOS unless you turn it on.

Edited June 18, 2018 by martin-w

[martin-w 3,234]

1 hour ago, 19dcavscout said:

Any increase in speed over what Intel ships the chip with is considered an overclock. Stock, as in without modifying anything in the bios, the 8086k will be a bit faster than a stock 8700k. 

8086k:
Core 1: 5.0 Ghz
Core 2: 4.6 Ghz
Core 3: 4.5 Ghz
Core 4: 4.4 Ghz
Core 5: 4.4 Ghz
Core 6: 4.3 Ghz

8700k:
Core 1: 4.7 Ghz
Core 2: 4.6 Ghz
Core 3: 4.5 Ghz
Core 4: 4.4 Ghz
Core 5: 4.4 Ghz
Core 6: 4.3 Ghz

As you can see the chip speeds are almost identical. You are better off buying an 8700k, getting is delidded from someplace like siolicon lottery, and overclocking the chip to run on 5.0-5.2 Ghz on all cores. It would cost the same. Especially considering the 8086k does not come delidded from the factory and is still a heat machine. The extra 300 mhz is not really worth the extra $75, especially since you can get that performance out of most 8700k's. The 8086k is all about marketing.

I would take an 8700k over a 7700k any day of the week if your budget can afford it. Hell the 8600k is better than the 7700k and is cheaper. Look elsewhere for the money and stay away from buying a new 7700k. 

 

 

Great post Nick. But just to emphasise, as you probably know but some still might not grasp it, core 1 will not boost to the max Turbo frequency (5 GHz in terms of 8086K) if any of the other cores are active. It must be only one core active to hit max turbo frequency on that core.

My advice, with adequate cooling of course, and if someone doesn't desire manually overclocking, is to simply switch on MCE in the BIOS. Will be auto rules, so volts might be higher than required, but tweaking down the volts should be feasible.

All that's happened with  Intel's 14nm process is that it's mature enough now to enable decent speed-binning. Thus, a reasonable number of Coffee Lake wafers are able to handle a single-core speed to 5 GHz without hefty hikes in voltage. These are the chips that become the 8086K.

So if the purchaser isn't short of funds and feels that a chance of lower voltage and possibly a tad lower temp is worth it for the extra dosh fair enough. 

Edited June 18, 2018 by martin-w

[busdriver 258]

Jim,

Notice you are running M.2 drives. Are they worth the extra cost in terms of performance? My new build is identical to yours, but still figuring out the whole M.2 -vs- SATA III thing. No issues with using up PCIe lanes?

Cheers,

Bill