Upgrade advice.

[Benjamin J 751]

Hello all,

I'm looking into potentially upgrading my rig. My motivation is upgraded performance in P3Dv5 and MSFS. While I still run P3Dv4 exclusively, I see myself moving over to v5 when 5.1 lands, and so don't see myself focusing on v4 anymore. As I understand it, all platforms will make use of a faster CPU, but it's mostly v5 and MSFS that will be happy with a better GPU.

I currently have an i5-8600K (OC to 4.8GHz) paired with a RTX1070 and 16GB of DDR4 3200 RAM. I run at 1080p, nothing fancy, and am also not really willing to go higher than that. I have no interest in VR for the time being. This works well in smaller airports and holds its own surprisingly well even at places like KATL, but gets hammered badly in LA, NYC, Tokyo, Osaka... basically any large metropolitan area. Now, Low FPS I can still deal with. It's the pauses that break it for me.

I see three potential upgrade paths (which do not exclude each other)

1. Upgrade to an i7-9700K. My MOBO supports this and I have always felt that I'm CPU-limited, most of all. However, I tried upgrading to the i7 once before (same CPU, in fact), and saw zero benefit - I ended up returning the i7 and popping the i5 back in. However, at that occasion I did not go through the trouble of starting fresh with my Windows installation, which I was recommended to do after the fact. Thus, perhaps that's why I saw hardly any benefit from this upgrade.
2. Upgrade to a GTX3080. I doubt v4 would see much benefit form this, but one of my reasons to go this way would be v5's hunger for more VRAM. I can also see that MSFS would enjoy a beefier GPU.
3. Add another 16GB of RAM. The cheapest and probably least effective upgrade, but something that would probably be useful for other things I use my computer for, e.g. Photoshop.

While I believe the CPU upgrade would probably end up being the most useful in the long run, it will probably come with the most work (reinstalling Windows) and I'm afraid I'd be needing to shell out more money for liquid cooling. Currently I'm using the Noctua DH15S, which is an admirable cooler and works very well with my i5, but not sure it would quite cut it with the i7 if I would want to overlock it to 4.8GHz or so.

I would like some advice on what would be the most effective path to walk - if at all. The answer could also just be "don't upgrade anything- it'd be a waste of money". But if upgrading would be worth it, I'd be interested to hear what would be the best way. Though please note I'll probably be wanting to stick with the MOBO I already have... Hence it's unlikely I'll be changing to AMD.

 

EDIT: This is just a note, as Bert's post below jogged my memory on this. One of the reasons I'm posting this here is because I wonder how useful the upgrade would be. v5 seems to give a boost of its own that might just be enough for me to be able to fly quite comfortably. Any thoughts in relation to this would be greta as well.

[pgde 571]

What resolution are you running at? 

[Benjamin J 751]

5 minutes ago, pgde said:

What resolution are you running at? 

1080p, nothing fancy. Also I have no real interest in trying VR any time soon.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

37 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

I would like some advice on what would be the most effective path to walk - if at all. The answer could also just be "don't upgrade anything- it'd be a waste of money". But if upgrading would be worth it, I'd be interested to hear what would be the best way. Though please note I'll probably be wanting to stick with the MOBO I already have... Hence it's unlikely I'll be changing to AMD.

I may well be biased since I run a 4770K@4.1 coupled with a GTX1070 and 16 GB of RAM.. not that different from what you've got..

What I found was that my PC runs P3DV5 better than v4, and it runs MSFS just fine also (I am mainly limited by my 8Mbps internet connection).

SO, if you want to continue flying P3D, I would recommend going to V5 and getting a solid performance boost that way.

No need for faster hardware IMHO, as long as you stay with a 1080 monitor 🙂

[Benjamin J 751]

2 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

I may well be biased since I run a 4770K@4.1 coupled with a GTX1070 and 16 GB of RAM.. not that different from what you've got..

What I found was that my PC runs P3DV5 better than v4, and it runs MSFS just fine also (I am mainly limited by my 8Mbps internet connection).

SO, if you want to continue flying P3D, I would recommend going to V5 and getting a solid performance boost that way.

No need for faster hardware IMHO, as long as you stay with a 1080 monitor 🙂

Bert - thanks for this! You're absolutely right and it's actually the reason I posted this topic to begin with. It sounds like v5 gives a boost of its own, but the main setback for people has been the VRAM. With that in mind, I was leaning towards the GPU upgrade, even though  was thinking the CPU upgrade might give the most noticeable performance boost, FPS-wise. You don't think the extra 2GB of VRAM that a RTX3080 might give would be useful?

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

5 minutes ago, Benjamin J said:

Bert - thanks for this! You're absolutely right and it's actually the reason I posted this topic to begin with. It sounds like v5 gives a boost of its own, but the main setback for people has been the VRAM. With that in mind, I was leaning towards the GPU upgrade, even though  was thinking the CPU upgrade might give the most noticeable performance boost, FPS-wise. You don't think the extra 2GB of VRAM that a RTX3080 might give would be useful?

Not if you stay with your 1080 monitor... I typically use 5-6 GB of VRAM.

And.. fps wise, I lock at 30 fps, using RTSS vsync x/2 and rarely go below it.

Now, I do not own super fancy addon airports, other than FlyTampa KTPA and StMaarten.. 😉

Edited September 28, 2020 by Bert Pieke

[rjack1282 316]

(Option 1) - I would say your GPU is your current bottleneck no?  In which case upgrading your CPU would have little effect. 

(Option 2) - A 3080 will probably be overkill for 1080p and could potentially bottleneck your CPU.  You see this on numerous 1080p benchmarks where there is only a few percent advantage between mid-tier and upper-tier graphics cards when benchmarked with the same CPU. 

(Option 3) - Ram is so cheap right now this is almost a no-brainer of an upgrade.  Make sure you have an XMP profile set so you are taking advantage of your 3200 ram.

What I would do in your situation is add the ram and get a 3070 when able.  Or I would get a 2080 which should fall to $200 on the used market once the 3070s and 3080s ramp up production.  I've already seen reports of people purchasing 2080s for low money.  I would not upgrade CPU until I saw what AMD Zen 3 offers since you will have to get a new motherboard anyway to get the latest offerings from Intel.  

[pgde 571]

How about finding a used 1080ti?

[Benjamin J 751]

22 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Not if you stay with your 1080 monitor... I typically use 5-6 GB of VRAM.

And.. fps wise, I lock at 30 fps, using RTSS vsync x/2 and rarely go below it.

Now, I do not own super fancy addon airports, other than FlyTampa KTPA and StMaarten.. 😉

In general it sounds promising, but I do own tons of fancy addons 😉 I suppose that's where the difference is!

 

22 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

For the budget conscious, I'd suggest a 10700K, but that means a new motherboard.  The 9700K doesn't have Hyperthreading, good for P3D but not so good for Photoshop.  The 10700K also provides 5.1Ghz boost without any major cooling effort ... good for core0 on flight sims.

Wait and see what VRAM variants comes out for the 3080 ... 10GB is not enough, in most situations you can get away with 16GB VRAM.  Of course, who knows how much of a premium vendors will charge for more VRAM on the 3080, might end up being ridiculously expensive just like a 3090 (or even worse like my Titan RTX).  

MSFS is current king of VRAM usage at 26GB+ with just one tweak ... lucky it uses DX11 or else CTDs if it were DX12.

V5.x should provide a good performance boost with a 3080 and good CPU to feed it.

Cheers, Rob.

I appreciate your insight. I would rather stick with the motherboard I have, but if the 10700k is really that much better, I might look into it. What sort of performance boost do you expect from my current i5? Is there a particular manufacturer or model you can recommend to go with the 10700k? I'll certainly wait with the 30xx series (anyway I'd need to as they are consistently sold out).

 

20 hours ago, rjack1282 said:

(Option 1) - I would say your GPU is your current bottleneck no?  In which case upgrading your CPU would have little effect. 

(Option 2) - A 3080 will probably be overkill for 1080p and could potentially bottleneck your CPU.  You see this on numerous 1080p benchmarks where there is only a few percent advantage between mid-tier and upper-tier graphics cards when benchmarked with the same CPU. 

(Option 3) - Ram is so cheap right now this is almost a no-brainer of an upgrade.  Make sure you have an XMP profile set so you are taking advantage of your 3200 ram.

What I would do in your situation is add the ram and get a 3070 when able.  Or I would get a 2080 which should fall to $200 on the used market once the 3070s and 3080s ramp up production.  I've already seen reports of people purchasing 2080s for low money.  I would not upgrade CPU until I saw what AMD Zen 3 offers since you will have to get a new motherboard anyway to get the latest offerings from Intel.  

I assumed my CPU is the bottleneck because it's regularly at 80-100% capacity, whereas my GTX1070 is typically around 40%. The only time I've seen it at 100% is at situations with heavy, heavy clouds, particularly at sunset. I understand this has to do with AA settings and the specific interaction of this setting with clouds? In other situations, e.g. in a thunderstorms, at night, at FT CYYZ with dynamic light enables, I tend to get it up to 70% or so, but not 100%. Hence I expect the CPU to be bottlenecked.

Right, the RAM is so cheap that it seems like an easy thing to do. My concern with he 2080 is the 8GB VRAM, hence I was looking at the 3080, as it expands on that. If I'm honest, it's the VRAM that is my motivation to upgrade the GPU, since otherwise the 1070 seems to be doping fine overall. When is the Zen3 coming out?

 

20 hours ago, pgde said:

How about finding a used 1080ti?

Not a bad idea, given that it expands the VRAM. However, I really haven had any luck finding any that I thought would be any good and worth the price, given the mining that people have been suing them for. So I think I might just got with a 3080 or 3070 eventually.

 

So two of you suggest to take the plunge and get a new motherboard... My apprehension about this is that my current MOBO is probably 2-3 years old. the only problem is that the 10th gen Intel CPU has a different socket. I'm not sure I would get another motherboard for any other reason. But I do get another one, I suppose AMD would be fair game. What about this unwritten rule that seemed to say that P3D works better on Intel?

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Are you curretly exceeding either your 16 gb ram, or your 8gb vram?

If not, I would wait until you do.... plenty of time to upgrade later..

Go fly!

[Bob Scott 7,720]

I think some incrementalism might be appropriate in your case, starting, as Bert suggests, with a software upgrade to v5.  If you leave EA off, it won't present a VRAM problem at 1080p, even with complex add-ons.  v5 reduces (but does not eliminate) P3D's dependence on single-core performance, and may well smooth out most of your pause issues.  I also doubt EA would challenge 8GB of VRAM at 1080p...but you'd be able to determine that experimentally for yourself.

I would also recommend that you leave v4.5 on your computer, as there are still some add-ons that aren't ready for prime-time on v5, and some may never make the trip.  Also, there are a fair number of scenery add-ons that will work in v5 just by creating an xml entry that points to the existing v4 version (e.g. using a tool like Lorby-SI's free P3D Addon Manager).  I do still run v4 from time to time...for example the ORBX freeware airport pack has hundreds of buffed-up smaller airports designed for v4.x, and quite a few of them are not v5-compatible and will likely never be, as their author has died.  Aircraft add-ons like the Leonardo Maddog that use Real Light and True Glass are having trouble with DX12/v5, so v4 is the go-to platform if you want to use them, too.  SSD storage is pretty cheap now.

Also, by running with VSync lock at 30 Hz, you should see a lot more CPU headroom to help absorb those spikes in workload that come with scenery/terrain loading, and that translates into less and shorter pauses.  I use hardware refresh rate on a 30-Hz TV, but, as Bert pointed out, RTSS and x/2 scanline sync also does the trick.  My last system was an 8086K with HT off, which is essentially your 8600K but with more L3 cache, and it performed quite well until I got it to somewhere like KLAX with ORBX SoCal enabled.

A 3080 would give you the ability to handle heavy wx and dynamic lighting with more aggressive AA than you use now.  It's probably overkill at 1080p...as suggested above, a 1080Ti (or a 2070 Super or 2080) would probably be able to take whatever the CPU could dish out in most cases.

A better CPU (faster/more cores/more L3 cache) would allow you to dial-up the AI and autogen, and absorb peaks better.

As far as MSFS goes, I'm not sure how GPU/VRAM usage scales with resolution.  I run 4K and 1440p on my two MSFS machines...a 2080Ti drives the 4K monitor, and a 1080Ti drives the 2560x1440 G-Sync monitor on my portable sim rig.  Based on that, I doubt a 3080 is necessary or likely to add a lot at 1080p, but that's something of an educated guess on my part.

Same for RAM--I find that MSFS uses over 16GB of RAM at 4K with Ultra settings, so for new builds I definitely recommend 32GB now.  But, that said, I don't know that 16GB is much of a limfac with a little slider management.

[Manny 1,293]

Yeah.. I agree with Rob. I would go with the top CPU , 490 MB and compatible Memory. 32GB mem is not that expensive

BTW I went from water cooler to  Noctua DH15 in my new build. so you should be able to reuse the  Noctua DH15 provided you call your Noctua customer service to send you the right backplate for the MB.

Everything else is optional. Yeah..if you are waiting for P3D P5.1 you would need more than 10GM VRAM I believe. Thats  why I am bnot buying either the RTX 3080 or the way expensive 3090

[Benjamin J 751]

Thanks for your insights, Bob and Manny, that's useful. The reason I've been thinking of upgrading NOW is because my computer is already in pieces... We recently moved cross-country and for this I had to ship my computer, so I took it apart and packed the components separately. So this forms a perfect moment to go ahead and replace some things. Thus, the software update is something i can only do once everything is back in place - which is exactly the thing that will keep me from ever upgrading anything again, as I don't particularly enjoy the process 😅

But I do wonder about the use of the 10700k over the 9700k? What will the former give me that the latter can't? I ask because, as you all have pointed out, the 10700k will require a new motherboard as well.

Thanks for that comment on the Noctua btw! That's good to know. It sounds as though I could possibly just get an i7 and not OC it, letting the turbo boost take care of things? Or would an OC of all cores still radically enhance performance?

As for the RAM, I went ahead and simply bought more, spurred on by Bert's question. I do not exceed 16GB RAM running P3D, but I certainly do running photoshop, as my files tend to be huge. Photoshop simply eats 16GB RAM for breakfast. And as it's cheap, I decided to simply get more of it...

With regards to the GPU, it soudns as though I should just wait and see what comes out with the 3080 and 3070, and possibly a 2080ti or 1080ti might be good enough.

[Noel 4,498]

On 9/28/2020 at 11:56 AM, Benjamin J said:

 

1. Upgrade to an i7-9700K.

Ben, strongly suggest 9900K because enabling HT made a big difference for me in MSFS.  I had always run P3D 4.5 w/ HT disabled.  I would get the occasional 'long frame', that 1-2 second pause that would happen in dense scenery in P3D 4.5, but I never thought to see if enabling HT would make any difference there.   When I installed MSFS the same thing was happening, only those long frames would last a little longer, 2-3 seconds.  Long story short enabling HT fixed that behavior in both sims, so this is where we run today.  Of note, MSFS is very CPU-friendly so it is the norm to see core temps of 42-48C w/ HT enabled and I have my clock speed set at 4900mHz@1.21v on the 9900K.

Shockingly to me, in MSFS which is where I'm spending 90% of sim time now, the RTX 2070 Super I bought as a tie over until Ampere arrives does quite well w/ pretty much everything at Ultra and LOD at 200.  There are def spots I need to dial back things like shadow quality and trees back to high from ultra lest VRAM hit 8Gb or GPU utilization hits 100%.  Of very important note:  I run vsync to a 30Hz refresh rate so all the sys has to maintain, ever, is 30fps.  This puts the entire system in a rather relaxed and efficient state as the CPU does not to prep more frames than that, hence it is running w/ an average utilization of around 25% in MSFS, and of course much higher in P3D.  I may not have the theoretical part right for this explanation, but it's clearly true the CPU is half asleep running MSFS.  My belief is if and when complex 3PD airliners arrive there will be ample headroom to handle them, and even more so after DX12 comes to MSFS.   I still plan to pick up a 30 series GPU, perhaps a 3070 Super or 3080Ti if they debut w/ say 16Gb VRAM minimum in prep for DX12.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Noel

[Benjamin J 751]

15 hours ago, Rob_Ainscough said:

With the 10700K you get higher boost frequency (5.1Ghz vs. 4.9Ghz) and hyperthreading and larger Cache. 

Hyperthreading and higher boost frequency will help with Photoshop which you indicated you use.

Cheers, Rob.

 

6 hours ago, Noel said:

Ben, strongly suggest 9900K because enabling HT made a big difference for me in MSFS.  I had always run P3D 4.5 w/ HT disabled.  I would get the occasional 'long frame', that 1-2 second pause that would happen in dense scenery in P3D 4.5, but I never thought to see if enabling HT would make any difference there.   When I installed MSFS the same thing was happening, only those long frames would last a little longer, 2-3 seconds.  Long story short enabling HT fixed that behavior in both sims, so this is where we run today.  Of note, MSFS is very CPU-friendly so it is the norm to see core temps of 42-48C w/ HT enabled and I have my clock speed set at 4900mHz@1.21v on the 9900K.

Shockingly to me, in MSFS which is where I'm spending 90% of sim time now, the RTX 2070 Super I bought as a tie over until Ampere arrives does quite well w/ pretty much everything at Ultra and LOD at 200.  There are def spots I need to dial back things like shadow quality and trees back to high from ultra lest VRAM hit 8Gb or GPU utilization hits 100%.  Of very important note:  I run vsync to a 30Hz refresh rate so all the sys has to maintain, ever, is 30fps.  This puts the entire system in a rather relaxed and efficient state as the CPU does not to prep more frames than that, hence it is running w/ an average utilization of around 25% in MSFS, and of course much higher in P3D.  I may not have the theoretical part right for this explanation, but it's clearly true the CPU is half asleep running MSFS.  My belief is if and when complex 3PD airliners arrive there will be ample headroom to handle them, and even more so after DX12 comes to MSFS.   I still plan to pick up a 30 series GPU, perhaps a 3070 Super or 3080Ti if they debut w/ say 16Gb VRAM minimum in prep for DX12.

 

Thanks for both your insights, Rob and Noel. So then, I have some specific questions:

• How do 9900K and 10700K compare, performance wise?
• Given that the 10700K would also require getting a new mother board (an extra 150-200$ or so), which of these options would give me the best price/performance ratio?
• I was told that I could probably just run the 9700K or 10700K without OC and my Noctua DH15 should keep it cool enough, with Turbo boost on core0 bringing enough of a performance increase when necessary (@Rob_Ainscough  I think it might have been you that suggested that)
  • How does this translate to the 9900K? I suppose that turbo boost on the 9900K should do a similarly good job?
  • Is a boost on one single core good enough for enhanced performance in P3D v4?
  • And what about v5? I read that v5 seems to spread the load over core 0, 2 and 4, rather than having it all on core 0, so that boost on just core0 seems like it would be an 'oudated' approach?
  • @Noel, I see you're using the Noctua DH15, and it seems as though you were able to reach 4.9GHz with your 9900K, which is something of a relief. How does this perform in v5? As much as v4 is laoded with all the stuff I like, I do feel an 'itch' to jump to the next iteration sometime soon.