CPU upgrade advice 5900x, 5950x or intel?

[skylane182 10]

Hello,

what‘s your advice regarding a cpu upgrade from intel 8700k?

I think about getting a Ryzen 9-5900x or 5950x, but after reading some good reviews an intel alder lake may also become a candidate.

The cpu will be used for MSFS and P3D (maybe XP12 if that becomes a good sim). 
GPU is a MSI RTX 3090

 

[seasley 17]

My philosophy is that the most important consideration for flight sims is the max speed of a single thread.  P3D is definitely constrained by the speed of the main thread, as is MSFS despite all the advances that Asobo made. (It's much improved but just throwing more cores at it doesn't equal more FPS.) I don't have a lot of experience with X-Plane, but when I played around with XP11 a few years ago it seemed like the same story.

While Ryzen processors can put out top numbers on overall benchmarks, their performance in gaming benchmarks is not always the best. When looking at just a single thread, the 12900KS benchmarks 25% faster than the 5950X (per PassMark.com). But Intel chips run hotter and cost more, so consider that as well.

I just upgraded my system from an 9700K to a 12900K and couldn't be happier.  It's still paired with a 2080TI, which seems to be a good balance. Previously I was constantly CPU bound. Now I'm usually bouncing between being CPU and GPU bound when running at 4k.  With a 3090, you'll most likely be still waiting on the CPU, so I'd definitely try to max it out. I know some people complain about thermals with the Alder Lake CPUs, but I haven't had any problems with mine. I installed a good 280mm AIO cooler, and my CPU definitely runs cooler and makes less noise than my GPU.

[skylane182 10]

Thanks Scott, do you operate the 12900K overclocked or with standard clock?

Has anyone else experience with the 5900x vs. 12900K in MSFS and P3D? Is the better performance of the 12900K worth the higher price?

Edited July 15, 2022 by skylane182

[seasley 17]

I haven't done anything about overlocking by 12900K.

I had my 9700K overclocked before I switched exclusively to MSFS, but like others here, I found that MSFS just wasn't stable with an overlock that everything else was fine with. I reverted to the standard clocks with it, and I use my 12900K at the standard clocks. 

Maybe I'll play around when I have some time, but I've been enjoying flying too much since I upgraded.

[pgde 570]

Before you decide on a CPU, you should goto Youtube and do a search on 5800x3d vs 12900k -- here is an example -- 

 

[F737MAX 4,313]

Huge fan of the 5800X3D CPU in MSFS.

I throw a lot of data at my CPU in the form of Ultra settings, lots of objects and lots of detail, all while flying the Fenix A320. The huge extra amount of L3 Cache allows it to breeze through nearly everything.

The only time I've had a performance hit in MSFS is by having too many live AI aircraft, plus setting the Render Scaling and Terrain LOD sliders too high for the scenario (FSDT KORD at evening rush hour).

Apparently, the 5800X3D does not deliver a performance improvement in P3D over lower specification CPUs. It appears that the render engine is the performance limiter and no longer because of PC hardware capability.

 

P.S. The caveat to my recommendation is that the current Alder Lake CPUs and future AMD Ryzen 7000 series and Intel Raptor Lake CPUs that will be released in the Autumn are future-proofed.
They have / will have faster DDR5 and PCIe 5.0 support, compared to the 5800X3D being the very last of the current generation of CPUs (AM4 socket, DDR4 and PCIe 4.0). Just something to note.
 

Edited July 15, 2022 by F737MAX
Postscript

[markmasterson 62]

My recommendation is to wait a couple months to find out what the new Intel 13700 and 13900K bring to the market.   Moving from a lower generation will require a new Motherboard, PS, and depending on if use DD4 or you want DDR5 also more cost.   I just bought a MSI motherboard 690 Pro, and Intel I5 12600KF for 400.00 during Amazon Prime days.  This mother board excepts DDR4 plus it upgradeable to the 13 Generation of CPUs.  Both AMD and Intel are in battle.  Wait and see or do what I did upgrade a little bit to wait for the next generation.   By the way the 12600KF is faster then I9 10900K so it was a great move for me

[skylane182 10]

Thank you all!

yes, the 5800x3d should also be considered. First, I thought only 8 cores are not enough today, but the reviews of that CPU with huge L3 cache in P3D or MSFS sound amazing. 
 

I know that new Zen 4 and Intel 13000 CPUs will be announced this fall, but I assume that the prices will be very high and the availability low at the beginning. I‘m more concerned over the reports of a possible 5900x3d, which would have the huge cache of the 5800x3d with more cores and make the investment in a 5800x3d a bit worthless.

[G-RFRY 1,647]

Wait till the testers get the benchmarks out.

Core i7 Raptor Lake ES Hits Highly Coveted 6GHz Clock in CPU-Z | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com)

Nvidia GeForce RTX 4070 Ti Easily Matches 3090 Ti Says Leaker | Tom's Hardware (tomshardware.com)

Edited August 1, 2022 by G-RFRY

[cowpatz 204]

The problem with all these benchmarks is that they do not test in any of the flightsims.

With respect to the new Raptor Lake CPUs, I can see the P core E core discussions and configurations taking over where hyperthreading and Affinity Masks left off 🙂

Edited August 1, 2022 by cowpatz

[G-RFRY 1,647]

2 hours ago, cowpatz said:

The problem with all these benchmarks is that they do not test in any of the flightsims.

With respect to the new Raptor Lake CPUs, I can see the P core E core discussions and configurations taking over where hyperthreading and Affinity Masks left off 🙂

MSFS Benchmark last on vid.

RTX 3090 Ti vs RTX 3080 Ti vs RTX 3070 Ti vs RTX 3060 Ti - Test in 4K - YouTube

[pgde 570]

Just FYI, skip to 7:18 in the above linked video for MSFS.

[cowpatz 204]

Thanks for that.