I was away from simming for 7 years. My old system consists of:

Intel® Core i7-3770K Processor
Corsair Dominator DDR3 1866MHz 16GB
ASUS Maximus V Formula, Socket-1155
ASUS GeForce GTX 680 2GB PhysX CUDA
 

I am "old school" and run single montior at 1920x1080. Perhaps I could add one more monitor.

I was getting average performance with FSX. Flying primarily to aerosoft airports and using PMDG 737.

Would I get noticeable performance boost (smoothness and FPS, not into autogen/AI planes) with upgrade to latest tech? What would you suggest in such case?

 

Thank you all in advance, and sorry if I ask obious questions, but I have been away for 7 years :)

 

2 hours ago, JU108 said:

Would I get noticeable performance boost (smoothness and FPS, not into autogen/AI planes) with upgrade to latest tech? What would you suggest in such case?

The performance boost would be huge. Really huge. Things have moved on massively.

As for recommendations. Buy the best that you can afford. I'm still saving but as it currently stands I will be going the just released intel i9 10900K route. It is undeniably the best chip for flight simulation and gaming at the moment. You will have the value crowd in here screaming of the virtues and value of the latest AMD chips and they would be right in many regards but if you only want the best for just simming and gaming there is no discussion. Intel is still the best. Either an i9 10900K or an I7 10700K. I will be paring that 10900K with one of the soon to be released 30 series Nvidia graphics cards. I would not bother to replace my graphics card until then. It's only a few months away.

Big changes on the way with the soon to be relased Microsoft Flight SImulator. Time for those of us still running on steam to upgrade, I'm afraid.

You have the a similar setup to me. I'm also on an i7-3770K. I have already ordered all my parts for my new build. Like what most others say, the jump will be huge. The only thing I'm waiting on is the CPU. The rest of the stuff has already arrived. I will also be upgrading to the 3080ti once that comes out as well.

Also definitely recommend the i9-10900K if you want the best ATM. I've always been with Intel and feel safe by staying with them. Don't really want to dip my toes into the water with an AMD build. Might run into more problems down the line than it's worth. 

What inspired me to build a new machine was MSFS 2020. I can't wait for that to come out!

Hi,

Are you planning to run FSX still or move to the current/future sims such as P3Dv5, FS2020 or X Plane? You didn't mention this.

I would certainly first look at the recommended (not minimum) specs for each simulator first before making any purchasing decisions based on which sims you intend flying.

 

The current/future sims are very much oriented towards having a decent graphics card now so you want to "splurge" on a stand-alone card.

• FSX was oriented towards having CPU power (speed) and less graphics card capability.
• With the newer simulators this dependency upon CPU vs graphics card has become more balanced so that graphic card capabilities play a more important role now e.g. , P3Dv4 less so, v5 even less so and X-Plane
• You#ll still need and decent CPU capable of running more than 4Ghz at its default clock speed in my opinion.

Memory: at least 16GB RAM but 32GB would be recommended

Note: For the forthcoming FS2020 simulator, it also will depend upon your internet bandwidth since streaming of scenery will occur while P3Dv5 and X-Plane rely upon the installed scenery.

 

If you plan on running multiple sims plus scenery add-ons, you ll need a couple of drives, preferably one for Windows 10 and the other for one or more simulators depending upon size of disk you choose.

SSDs (NVME/PCIe and SATA) are becoming comparable in price to what spinning hard drives were 5 years ago. To take advantage of thse non-spinning drives  you #ll need a motherboard with so-called M2 slots.

 

For monitors, certainly moving from 1080p to 1440p with a larger 30+ inch monitor would also help get the best experience out of the sim(s). 4K monitors are also an option but you'll need one of the higher end graphics cards to do that 4K monitor justice since you'll be pushing more pixels around.

• For monitor suggestions, I would also look at the Avsim subforum for this. There's a lot of good discussion about 30+ monitor recommendations.

 

CPU recommendations are mentioned in the above post.

I hope this provides a basis for what to look out for.

 

Suggestion: Once you know which sims you intend to use, I would suggest you post your shopping list of computer specs here and ask for some comments to check your system is balanced between all the different specs and components. Theres a lot of knowledgeable folks here.

 

Cheers
Mark

I echo everything @Jazz has to say!

Check out the new incoming FS!  (They are back!!)

https://www.flightsimulator.com/

I'm in the same boat with the same CPU and I've decided to postpone upgrading until September. There's two big releases from Intel and Nvidia in the next few months and I'm expecting current top of the range CPUs and GPUs to be superseded and prices to dip a little accordingly.

On 6/6/2020 at 10:01 AM, captain420 said:

...........

Also definitely recommend the i9-10900K if you want the best ATM.

............

I am tired of OCing, would the i9-10900...  (NO K)... do as well? heard you can sidestep the lock and increase the 100 bandwidth

9 hours ago, peppy197 said:

I am tired of OCing, would the i9-10900...  (NO K)... do as well? heard you can sidestep the lock and increase the 100 bandwidth

No. The non K chips are slower out of the box than the K. Slower clock speeds. They really are not the same. This idea that K chips are only for overclockers is complete nonsense. They are just faster anyway.

Edited June 18, 20205 yr by Jazz

The best for OC is KF according to the Intel guy in the review vid if you do not need the included Graphics one less package on the chip. they are hard to get at the moment no one has them in stock. 

Having posted a little while ago that I was holding off on upgrading from my venerable 3770K, today I weakened and bought an i7-10700K machine running an RTX 2070 Super with 16GB RAM. Pre built machine came in under £2,000 complete with a 1TB SSD.

The i9 seems like overkill at the price point and if rumours about FS2020 and multi threading support are right, I won't be using the extra 2 cores (compared to an i7) anyway. I took the 2070S because the 2080Ti is not only stupidly overpriced in itself but the 2070 Super offers ~85% of its performance at near half the price. From looking at price tracker charts, Nvidia vendors don't seem to discount old inventory when a new product line is released.

Most importantly, the LGA1200 mobo means I can drop in future CPUs for the next few years at least and I expect the GPU to be good for 5 years.

 

I fully expect the entire system to halve in price later this year now I've been impatient and bought it...

8 hours ago, lambourne said:

The i9 seems like overkill at the price point and if rumours about FS2020 and multi threading support are right, I won't be using the extra 2 cores (compared to an i7) anyway.

What are these rumours?

On 6/17/2020 at 7:59 PM, peppy197 said:

I am tired of OCing, would the i9-10900...  (NO K)... do as well? heard you can sidestep the lock and increase the 100 bandwidth

I'd definitely get a K cpu for the reasons Jazz mentions.  Even if I were tired of oc'ing.

Think about it this way.  If you /decide/ to clock it, you have the option.  And you only need to set it up once and you are done and can fly.  The potential to oc may extend the life of your purchase too.  5 years from now you may need the extra cpu horsepower which will enable you to wait an extra 6 months to upgrade to that i9-19000k which is just around the corner in March 2026.  heh.

7 hours ago, Mace said:

I'd definitely get a K cpu for the reasons Jazz mentions. 

I bought the i7-10700K and 32G DDR4, and am happy enough.

The improvement is a of a magnitude or more from my oldish i7-4790K / 16G-RAM , even without a new GPU yet  (nVidia 1070, waiting for the Ampere 3080Ti )

Its not just the fps, which are OK but not that high.... it's the detail available. I've just landed at KJFK (FSDT, ORBX LC_BASE, ...most sliders full right ) and clocked in 22G RAM usage, no stuttering (26 fps+-), everywhere I look is in focus without delay. There was enroute and on  approach where I thought I saw stuttering, nothing is perfect

Edited July 1, 20205 yr by peppy197