Hi everyone, 

I'm building a new PC, and would appreciate your thoughts on selecting an optimal processor. Is it better to go for higher multicores, i.e., AMD 3950X, or stick with higher Ghz, i.e., Intel i9-9900KS? Thank you. 

Kind regards,

S.S  

You should wait until the game is fully released before making that decision. Since they'll want it to run well on the Xbox Series X, it is necessary that it takes good advantage of multiple threads, and in that case the AMD processor will perform better with more efficiency. By the time it is released we will definitely have Comet Lake and perhaps Zen 3 as well, so you should hold on to your current system unless you really need a new one now.

Moved from the MSFS forum to the Hardware Forum.  Members (albeit several years ago) requested a hardware forum.  Almost every forum in the world has a hardware forum separate from the main discussion forums.  If we had a hardware forum for each simulator, it would be a mess with great information in several different forums and why AVSIM has one that fits all.  The hardware forum is where you post questions about hardware needed to run any of the flight simulators.  One can tell us what simulator he is building a new sim for or the number of cores needed but the information about hardware relates to every flight simulator and not just MSFS, FSX/P3D, or XP11.

When you talk about cores and GHz, you are talking about CPU's.  If you get a new CPU, you will need a new MB and perhaps a new video card too.  This information can already be found in the Hardware Forum and saves one from having to post the same information over and over again or our members going from one forum to another forum to get their answer. Thanks to everyone for your cooperation.

@b737800 Hope this answers your question.

19 hours ago, ssair1 said:

AMD 3950X

Right now, I say get the AMD.... Don't support the mediocrity of Intel.

1 hour ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

...So large shared cache and more Ghz is my vote.

Cheers, Rob.

Rob,

What CPU's currently align with your recommendation?

Kind Regards,

Can't say about P3d as i don't own it ,

X-plane as of now will not use above 4 cores. Maybe with vulkan it will be a different story.  But still needs a good single threaded performance. 

overall speed the intel is  a bit ahead and probably can be oc'd.   

Even if you want an AMD the 3950x seems to be an overkill.  Unless you plan on doing video / audio stuff or 3d renders and run the sim all together.

3600 or 3600x is fine. 

 

I've posted this exact question as I'm gonna get new CPU/mobo/memory coming from an i7 4770k/ gtx1070.  I like using a lot of AI, framerate gets punished a lot from it.  Unfortunately we WILL have to wait til the optimized release for the answer of how it scales across cpu cores.  Will 8 5Ghz cores provide higher framerates versus more than 8 4Ghz cores? maybe, but when this software gets updates and addons through the next ten years, will 8 cores still provide maximum performance or would you have been better getting 16 from the start.

  Typically Ghz is king for FS, but I hope going forward with this version we get the performance gains by more cores the better since it seems the trend of current cpus. 

Fingers crossed.

Or a high-end CPU might not be needed at all. It appears that Microsoft Flight Simulator was GPU-bound in both public venues where it was playable, and those computers were equipped with the RTX 2080 Ti. I have the feeling it will be best to go a with a budget 6-core and spend more towards the GPU, but we'll have to wait until the simulator is released.

Rob,

Interesting comments on AMD...evidently they've targeted a market that doesn't need the high single core freq.

As far as Intel, pretty much as I expected, but glad to hear from someone who has infinitely more knowledge of these things than me.

Kind Regards,