Is it time to upgrade a 2600k for P3D?

[AtlanticAviator 1]

Hello Everyone,

I'm aware there are various threads discussing whether or not it would be worthwhile upgrading a 2nd Gen i7 2600k to the latest tech, in order to take full advantage of what P3D has to offer.

I'm currently sitting with an i7 2600k @ 4.5, GTX 970 and 8Gb of 1600MHz DDR3. I use P3D V4 but ONLY at 1080p resolution and have no intention of moving to 1440p or 4K. It handles most situations well but the FSLabs Airbus for example has it on it's knees - on fairly medium settings. I look only for a smooth experience and thus not so concerned with 'figures' and 'frames'. I do, however, use all off the typical frame hogs, such as ORBX, AS16/SkyForce 3D, PMDG aircraft and addon scenery etc.

Therefore, that is why I find it difficult to decide if a full CPU/Mobo/RAM upgrade is worth the performance increase or if a GPU upgrade would bring the greatest increase in smoothness to the P3D experience.

Has anyone upgraded from a similar setup (OC'ed i7 2600k) and would recommend the move to an 8th Gen Intel i7 for P3D on 1080p? Or would I be better off waiting to see what the next generation of GTX cards brings to the platform (if anything)?

I appreciate this has been discussed repeatedly on the forum but I genuinely find it very difficult to make a decision as I see such varied opinions.

Cheers

 

[Charlatan 68]

I saw big improvements when I went from a 970 to a 1070, albeit with an overclocked 4790k.  However, I don't use FSlabs Airbus, so couldn't tell you if that is GPU or CPU dependant, however I would guess it's more cpu

[ckyliu 1,749]

Given your overclock I'd stick with the Sandybridge 2600k a bit longer but invest in a faster graphics card with more memory, I'm sure a 980Ti or 1080 would offer better value for money than the latest i5 K series because P3D is still fairly dependent on single core performance and an overclocked Sandybridge is still fairly competitive in that regard. And you can always move that new graphics card to a new build system in a year, whereas I don't think you'd be moving your existing GTX970 in to a new system.

When your sim is not running as smoothly as you'd like, use utilities like GPU-Z to see if the bottleneck is with the processor or graphics card.

Edited December 4, 2018 by ckyliu

[Sartanius 399]

1 hour ago, AtlanticAviator said:

Hello Everyone,

I'm aware there are various threads discussing whether or not it would be worthwhile upgrading a 2nd Gen i7 2600k to the latest tech, in order to take full advantage of what P3D has to offer.

I'm currently sitting with an i7 2600k @ 4.5, GTX 970 and 8Gb of 1600MHz DDR3. I use P3D V4 but ONLY at 1080p resolution and have no intention of moving to 1440p or 4K. It handles most situations well but the FSLabs Airbus for example has it on it's knees - on fairly medium settings. I look only for a smooth experience and thus not so concerned with 'figures' and 'frames'. I do, however, use all off the typical frame hogs, such as ORBX, AS16/SkyForce 3D, PMDG aircraft and addon scenery etc.

Therefore, that is why I find it difficult to decide if a full CPU/Mobo/RAM upgrade is worth the performance increase or if a GPU upgrade would bring the greatest increase in smoothness to the P3D experience.

Has anyone upgraded from a similar setup (OC'ed i7 2600k) and would recommend the move to an 8th Gen Intel i7 for P3D on 1080p? Or would I be better off waiting to see what the next generation of GTX cards brings to the platform (if anything)?

I appreciate this has been discussed repeatedly on the forum but I genuinely find it very difficult to make a decision as I see such varied opinions.

Cheers

Hi Kriss.  I believe the biggest bang for your buck will be the CPU upgrade at this time considering you are currently on a i7 2600. I have a slightly less capable graphics card (GTX1060) with an i7 8700K (OC'd to 5.0 GHz) and I get very acceptable FSL A3xx performance with middle-to-high P3D settings.

There will definitely be varied opinions here... just letting you know what my experience has been.  HTH!

Update: I have all the Orbx products, FSDreamteam, Flightbeam, FlyTampa, ImagineSim, PacSim, etc. airports, ASP4/ASCA, UTL and many more, so you understand my sim environment.

Edited December 4, 2018 by dmiannay

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

While I'm building my 7700K/GTX1070 Ti - - - my 2700K @ 4.7Ghz/GTX970 still does surprisingly well with P3Dv4... Those Sandy's are true work horses...

Regards,
Scott

[AtlanticAviator 1]

8 hours ago, Charlatan said:

I saw big improvements when I went from a 970 to a 1070, albeit with an overclocked 4790k.  However, I don't use FSlabs Airbus, so couldn't tell you if that is GPU or CPU dependant, however I would guess it's more cpu

It's mainly suttering with the FSLabs Airbus which leads me to suspect the CPU is the bottleneck with such a complex addon.

8 hours ago, ckyliu said:

Given your overclock I'd stick with the Sandybridge 2600k a bit longer but invest in a faster graphics card with more memory, I'm sure a 980Ti or 1080 would offer better value for money than the latest i5 K series because P3D is still fairly dependent on single core performance and an overclocked Sandybridge is still fairly competitive in that regard. And you can always move that new graphics card to a new build system in a year, whereas I don't think you'd be moving your existing GTX970 in to a new system.

When your sim is not running as smoothly as you'd like, use utilities like GPU-Z to see if the bottleneck is with the processor or graphics card.

I understand your logic, however I'm thinking I could maybe hold off with a GPU upgrade for another few months when hopefully more 1080 and 1080ti cards will be up for sale, at least that's what I hope!

8 hours ago, dmiannay said:

Hi Kriss.  I believe the biggest bang for your buck will be the CPU upgrade at this time considering you are currently on a i7 2600. I have a slightly less capable graphics card (GTX1060) with an i7 8700K (OC'd to 5.0 GHz) and I get very acceptable FSL A3xx performance with middle-to-high P3D settings.

There will definitely be varied opinions here... just letting you know what my experience has been.  HTH!

Update: I have all the Orbx products, FSDreamteam, Flightbeam, FlyTampa, ImagineSim, PacSim, etc. airports, ASP4/ASCA, UTL and many more, so you understand my sim environment.

That sounds quite reassuring Doug, and graphics cards can always be easily upgraded or sold at any time really, so that's good to know! I know upgrading my CPU is only a matter of when to pull the trigger, and I think the 8th Gen intel processors are finally convincing me to do so.

7 hours ago, scottb613 said:

Hi Folks,

While I'm building my 7700K/GTX1070 Ti - - - my 2700K @ 4.7Ghz/GTX970 still does surprisingly well with P3Dv4... Those Sandy's are true work horses...

Regards,
Scott

I agree! In most situations the system still performs surprisingly well with even the most complex addons!

Thanks all for your input, much appreciated! Just another quick question, at 1080p would there be much difference in performance between say a 1080 and a 1080ti? as the price difference is substantial of course!  Even at 1440p I assume this difference wouldn't be extremely convincing for P3D?

Cheers

 

[cgbart 7]

I'm in a similar situation with an i2500K. Waiting to pull the trigger on new hardware real soon but as a reference for bottlenecks I use http://thebottlenecker.com

From what I have seen, the bottleneck with your updated system would be the m/b and cpu running such a high-end gpu. Even my system running a EVGA FTW1070 gets a 30% bottleneck because of my motherboard, an ASRock P68 and the i2500K. BUT...my FSX is still stutter free. I fly the QW 757 with lots of ORBX, UTX NA and AS16 on SSDs, not mechanical HDs.

Regards

[AtlanticAviator 1]

16 hours ago, cgbart said:

I'm in a similar situation with an i2500K. Waiting to pull the trigger on new hardware real soon but as a reference for bottlenecks I use http://thebottlenecker.com

From what I have seen, the bottleneck with your updated system would be the m/b and cpu running such a high-end gpu. Even my system running a EVGA FTW1070 gets a 30% bottleneck because of my motherboard, an ASRock P68 and the i2500K. BUT...my FSX is still stutter free. I fly the QW 757 with lots of ORBX, UTX NA and AS16 on SSDs, not mechanical HDs.

Regards

 

I'm looking at the RTX 2070 as a potential GPU upgrade, it seems to be nicely pitched between the GTX 1080 and 1080ti in terms of performance which for 1920x1080 resolution is more than sufficient. 

For the CPU I'm leaning towards the 8086k which can easily be OC'ed to 5GHz without issues. I think this combination of CPU/GPU upgrade coupled with DDR4 RAM would bring P3D to a level not possible with my current system - smoothness is key!

Regards

[fghdgdfdfgfgf 111]

1 hour ago, AtlanticAviator said:

 

I'm looking at the RTX 2070 as a potential GPU upgrade, it seems to be nicely pitched between the GTX 1080 and 1080ti in terms of performance which for 1920x1080 resolution is more than sufficient. 

For the CPU I'm leaning towards the 8086k which can easily be OC'ed to 5GHz without issues. I think this combination of CPU/GPU upgrade coupled with DDR4 RAM would bring P3D to a level not possible with my current system - smoothness is key!

Regards

So you want to "take full advantage of what P3D (4.4) has to offer"?  Then you better get a Ti of the 2080 or 1080 variety  ...yeah, I can read, you use 1080P resolution, but you're going to push P3D 4.4 with an overclocked 8086.

I can easily drop a 9 spot on the G thang with the 1080Ti at 1440P with 4.4 half baked and pushed by an I5 8600. <g>

C'mon dudes!

[AtlanticAviator 1]

On 12/6/2018 at 1:42 PM, FunknNasty said:

So you want to "take full advantage of what P3D (4.4) has to offer"?  Then you better get a Ti of the 2080 or 1080 variety  ...yeah, I can read, you use 1080P resolution, but you're going to push P3D 4.4 with an overclocked 8086.

I can easily drop a 9 spot on the G thang with the 1080Ti at 1440P with 4.4 half baked and pushed by an I5 8600. <g>

C'mon dudes!

Hahhah I get you!

That was FuknNasty for use of a better expression! 😂

[TurboKen 221]

Yes! I went from a 2600k @ 4.8 to a 4790k @ 4.8 and saw a pretty good jump in performance, all around smoother flight. so upgrading to today's tech 8700/9700k would be all together a very nice boost to performance. Go for it!