Thoughts on CPU upgrade, it's depressing.

[Colonel X 1,428]

So I am running the good ol' 4790K, clocked at 4.6Ghz. The new 10700K seems to be the ideal CPU for MSFS (the 10900K has more cores, but MSFS doesn't utilize them).

I've been looking at https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html for single core performance, the single most important factor in flight simulation. 

4790K @ 4.0 = 2.47 Performance points.

10700K @ 3.8 = 3.08 Performance points.

That's a performance increase by 25% (not considering my overclock, or the 10700K's turbo speeds up to 5+Ghz), or in other words, if you get 25FPS at a situation in MSFS, the new CPU would run that with 31FPS. While that represents just the increase you need to kill the dips below 30FPS (I lock at 30FPS), and additionally will tackle the stutters caused by core overload, it's still, by all means NOT MUCH, considering the 6 years between the CPU's, and the roughly 700-900 bucks needed for the CPU, Mobo and RAM.

Seeing that I am basically locked at 30, and I only get dips at, say, LAX in "bad positions" (such as 07L looking at the entire airport with traffic) to maybe 27, I really wonder if it's worth the spending (and work). Am I missing something here? Will the increase be larger because the 10700K will run at turbo speeds (probably). Sure, once we get more complex add-ons, dips will increase, but overall, it's kind of depressing that even the fastest CPU can't lift your performance more than a mere 25%.

[JacquesBrel 639]

There's also RAM speed to take into account when upgrading to a newer motherboard/chipset. Some games, especially sims, can get a larger peformance increase with faster RAM, compared to the performance difference shown by synthetic benchmarks.

[canadiantree 233]

Wait for the new Ryzen CPU's which will be announced in just over 3 weeks, I think they will be quite surprising.

[UAL4life 237]

I guess I could google it, but for the sake of discussion, will Ryzen have improved clock speeds instead of cores? I assume yes as that’s the only way we will get more performance out of a CPU for flight simming! Here’s also hoping for 6.0 ghz without overclocking (doubt). 
 

(p.s. I may be completely wrong about CPUs and their impact on flight sims)

[Der Zeitgeist 1,575]

5 minutes ago, canadiantree said:

Wait for the new Ryzen CPU's which will be announced in just over 3 weeks, I think they will be quite surprising.

^This.

Ryzen Zen 3 will almost certainly have some nice IPC gains, which could be a good alternative to the current Intel generation.

MSFS already runs great on my Ryzen 3900x.

[Steku 158]

You need to determine first where your current bottleneck lies:

- CPU

- GPU

- other (RAM speed)? 

If you exchange the component which is not the bottleneck, you may have zero performance increase. 

[Colonel X 1,428]

9 minutes ago, Steku said:

You need to determine first where your current bottleneck lies:

- CPU

- GPU

- other (RAM speed)? 

If you exchange the component which is not the bottleneck, you may have zero performance increase. 

I am aware of that. But like in most cases, it's the CPU. My 1080ti is just yawning in MSFS.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Colonel X

[Colonel X 1,428]

22 minutes ago, JacquesBrel said:

There's also RAM speed to take into account when upgrading to a newer motherboard/chipset. Some games, especially sims, can get a larger peformance increase with faster RAM, compared to the performance difference shown by synthetic benchmarks.

Pretty sure these benchmarks are conducted with the fitting RAM. After all, these CPU's are all made for a distinct RAM speed.

[Victoroos 205]

22 minutes ago, Steku said:

You need to determine first where your current bottleneck lies:

- CPU

- GPU

- other (RAM speed)? 

If you exchange the component which is not the bottleneck, you may have zero performance increase. 

How would you determine Ram speed bottleneck? as in, CPU and GPU I know (resolution lower etc) but all the others 🙂

[Lotharen 287]

Yes, this very issue has been causing my eyes to bleed as I compare what I have to something better. I'm saving up for my computer every check. My wife games too so it will be a purchase x2. A SSD is my first purchase, nothing SATA, go for the M.2 NVME. They are more expensive but much faster that SATA models. 

I also decided to go AMD this go round. I have an i7 7700 and I'm looking at the Ryzen 3900XT and 32GB of G.Skill Trident Z Neo Memory that has a 3600 speed. Still thinking about the mother board right now lol.

That gave me a significant boost in performance and will future proof your investment. Once they enable Direct X12 it will be able to take advantage of all those cores.

I know Zen 3 is coming out.....the date hasn't been set as far as I know. Also what will their price point be? Performance vs Price is why I'm going AMD and shying away from Intel....a Similar set up with intel would cost me 2k or more (minus the graphic card), with this set up I'm at 1200 (minus the graphic card), so much cheaper.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents. I've flopped between Intel and AMD 4 times over the last month lol. Its agonizing! 

Also, according to this Benchmark https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-4790-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-3600XT/2293vsm1211585

the Ryzen has a 28% increase on single core speed. 

Edited September 16, 2020 by Lotharen

[mtr75 653]

3 hours ago, Colonel X said:

So I am running the good ol' 4790K, clocked at 4.6Ghz. The new 10700K seems to be the ideal CPU for MSFS (the 10900K has more cores, but MSFS doesn't utilize them).

I've been looking at https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html for single core performance, the single most important factor in flight simulation. 

4790K @ 4.0 = 2.47 Performance points.

10700K @ 3.8 = 3.08 Performance points.

That's a performance increase by 25% (not considering my overclock, or the 10700K's turbo speeds up to 5+Ghz), or in other words, if you get 25FPS at a situation in MSFS, the new CPU would run that with 31FPS. While that represents just the increase you need to kill the dips below 30FPS (I lock at 30FPS), and additionally will tackle the stutters caused by core overload, it's still, by all means NOT MUCH, considering the 6 years between the CPU's, and the roughly 700-900 bucks needed for the CPU, Mobo and RAM.

Seeing that I am basically locked at 30, and I only get dips at, say, LAX in "bad positions" (such as 07L looking at the entire airport with traffic) to maybe 27, I really wonder if it's worth the spending (and work). Am I missing something here? Will the increase be larger because the 10700K will run at turbo speeds (probably). Sure, once we get more complex add-ons, dips will increase, but overall, it's kind of depressing that even the fastest CPU can't lift your performance more than a mere 25%.

On the one hand you say single core speed is the most important metric, and on the other you say the 10700 is better than the 10900 because MSFS doesnt use the additional cores of the latter. Color me confused. Save for the fact that I'm almost positive that single core speed is no longer the most important thing. 

[Colonel X 1,428]

1 minute ago, mtr75 said:

On the one hand you say single core speed is the most important metric, and on the other you say the 10700 is better than the 10900 because MSFS doesnt use the additional cores of the latter. Color me confused. Save for the fact that I'm almost positive that single core speed is no longer the most important thing. 

It makes perfect sense to me? They have about the same single core speed, and MSFS doesn't use the additional cores on the 10900?

[Kilo60 660]

43 minutes ago, Der Zeitgeist said:

^This.

Ryzen Zen 3 will almost certainly have some nice IPC gains, which could be a good alternative to the current Intel generation.

MSFS already runs great on my Ryzen 3900x.

Isn’t Ryzen better at multi core applications rather than an Intel CPU which has better single core performance to which MSFS would utilize better?

[Nyxx 6,993]

Well look at my PC spec in sig below.

I know the numbers I get FPS wise with it and I will not change my setting come my new rig. Hopefully tomorrow 2pm UK I can order new PC 10900K@4.9 ( All cores), 32RAM 3200Hz 14-14-14-31, 3080, SSD M.2

So I will be able to tell you what that brings.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Nyxx

[EmaRacing 302]

Why Intel though?
AMD's price\performance in multicore is unbeatable ATM.