I hope this is the right place for this query.  Time to take a big step up and try MSFS after a long time away.  Wondering about an I7-11700 CPU and a RTX 3080 with 16GB RAM and a SSD HD.  The sim has been out for a couple of years so hoping there are some solid benchmarks from you all here.  There are so many options to chose from it is confusing.

John

I am by no means an expert, but personally i would go for a Nvme drive over standard SSD if your M/B is compatible (it should be nowadays) But there will be far better insight from others i am sure.

If you can, I'd go with 32gb of RAM. 

So this is my take, if you are using your rig for MSFS. As @Bdub22 said, get 32 GB of RAM.  If you are spending that amount of money on a 3080 and an I7-11700, you probably want 32 GB of RAM to go with it.

Regarding the hard drive, as @Car147 said, Nvme SSD is definitely the way to go.  Having said that, there is a new PCIE 4.0 standard for Nvme SSD drives.  The older standard is PCIE 3.0.  When I got my new computer, a PCIE 4.0 Nvme SSD drive was more expensive than a PCIE 3.0 Nvme SSD drive.  The read/write speed of the PCIE 4.0 SSD drives is almost double that of PCIE 3.0, I believe.   However, from what I have read so far for gaming performance, despite the fact that the read/write speed of PCIE 4.0 is so much faster than PCIE 3.0, the performance in gaming is not as much as you think: 

 

I went with a PCIE 3.0 Nvme SSD drive in the end, because it was just cheaper and the reported performance difference wasn't that great for gaming, at this point in time.  Maybe that will change in the future, as the technology for PCIE 4.0 matures (also, you may want to check the performance benchmarks for PCIE 3.0 vs 4.0 for MSFS).

Edited April 18, 20224 yr by abrams_tank

8 hours ago, Retiredpilot said:

The sim has been out for a couple of years so hoping there are some solid benchmarks from you all here. 

This will give you a rough idea of performance with that spec. Also, another vote for 32GB RAM with that spec level. It's roughly the same as what I run and it runs MSFS very well at 4K and acceptably in VR.

Edited April 18, 20224 yr by Reset XPDR

Thanks everyone.  I will have to look at RAM upgrade.  Maybe downgrading the card to a 3060 and going to a NVME drive.

4 hours ago, Retiredpilot said:

Maybe downgrading the card to a 3060 and going to a NVME drive.

I would definitely not make that tradeoff.  In sims, the practical difference between a SATA III and much-faster nVME SSD is minimal, and the differences between PCIe3 vs 4 nVME devices even less. 

The difference between a 3060 and 3080 is much more significant, and a subpar GPU choice is much more expensive to correct later.

Yes - Go with 32gb RAM, and at least 850 watts PS...

@Retiredpilot As others have said, 32 GB RAM and a beefy PSU, at least 850W but probably bigger with that GPU!

If you need to save money to afford an nVME SSD (note that you will only see improved loading times but not higher framerates), I would downgrade the processor as an i7 11700 would not be fully utilised by MFS (take it from someone who has a 12400F that spends much of its MFS time twiddling its thumbs), an 11600F would give similar performance since most of the differences between those two models are extra cores and threads.

Have you give any consideration to a 12th gen i5 intel processor instead of the 11th gen i7?

Edited April 20, 20224 yr by ckyliu

My budget is only about 1500, so I may have been too optimistic with component prices still being high.  I may look at a pre-built realizing it won't be as good, but some sacrifices will be inevitable.  Thanks.

Edited April 20, 20224 yr by Retiredpilot

It's not really all components that are high, just graphic cards now. A 3080 would eat up more than half your 1500 budget (I presume that is USD and not Vietnamese Dong, we are an international community so it is helpful to advise the currency as AUD is very different to EUR).

My MFS new build cost £800 without a graphics card, adding an RTX 3060 12 GB cost £500, the spec is at https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/JXdQZw as such I've opted to limp along with my old GTX980 until the 4000 series comes out and prices become more reasonable in the later part of this year. Price has already dropped from £500 to £400 in recent months for said 3060.

Edited April 20, 20224 yr by ckyliu

On 4/20/2022 at 7:55 AM, Retiredpilot said:

My budget is only about 1500, so I may have been too optimistic with component prices still being high.  I may look at a pre-built realizing it won't be as good, but some sacrifices will be inevitable.  Thanks.

This isn't the best company around but for the price - it's really not bad at all - the components in there could easily run MSFS at 1440P resolution.

https://www.amazon.com/CYBERRPOWERPC-Xtreme-i5-11600KF-GeForce-GXiVR8480A11/dp/B09TCKBJC3/ref=sr_1_4?crid=54XI8AC37E53&keywords=gaming%2Bpc&qid=1650595087&sprefix=gaming%2Bp%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-4&th=1

That's a good shout Ryan, certainly for the money. A bigger SSD and more RAM would be nice but you'd get that running 1440p MFS smoothly, like you said. But i rekon I can hear those fans from here!