33 minutes ago, LCAir said:

Very useful information ie the Developer Mode thank you. But I can be confident the GTX 1060 is the bind atm. I'm just wondering how far to upgrade without getting into futility. From what everyone has said it appears the 3090 is just too much with this cpu overclocked or not. At this point I am leaning to the 3080, turning the settings up and then using Developer Mode and the naked eye to see where I'm at. I'm confident I'll be satisfied but overclocking the cpu is still there as an option.

I would probably just get a 3060 TI or 3070 TI if you go the Nvidia route, unless you ARE planning to either upgrade or OC the CPU.

With your current CPU, I don't think the 3080 will even make that much difference over a 3060 TI, maybe a little. As mentioned prior, the AMDs seem to run MSFS better with slower CPU speeds than the Nvidia. I had less CPU usage and more GPU usage with the AMD, it's weird but it must be the difference in threading design. That said, the AMD's will run much hotter in the game, but produce much higher FPS-LOW and a higher FPS overall. I mean I was kind of surprised myself how much better the 6900xt on my system was than the 3080 12GB, and if I wasn't developing, would have kept the AMD to be frank. The 6900xt was about 20% faster than my current 3080 12GB on my older CPU, and it was about $100 cheaper too, and comes with 16 GB Ram. That said, the AMD software is pretty horrendously annoying, and NVIDIA is the standard, so it's a choice. I think the 6900xt is even quite a bit faster than the 3090 on slower CPU's, the difference becomes less as you increase the CPU power. The difference with my current CPU was less (about 10% to 15% better, but the AMD still won).

 

Edited October 19, 20223 yr by Alpine Scenery

6 hours ago, AJZip said:

- Flight Simulators are generally very sensitive to the CPU clock speed

<Ahem> Going to interject here and say that CPU speed is only one part of the equation...

Running at *only* 4.35 - 4.4 GHz (all core) is not harming my experience of MSFS at all. I.P.C. and especially L3 cache is the differentiator at the moment.
If AMD release Zen 4 CPUs with '3D V-Cache' as anticipated, I imagine this chart will look very different in January/February 2023.
 

Edited October 19, 20223 yr by F737MAX

I don't trust FPS charts in MSFS, there are too many errors in them. About 70% to 80% of FPS charts for MSFS are way off.

It just doesn't make much sense to get a real expensive GPU on that older CPU design, why not allocate the money properly to get the maximum FPS per dollar spent. It may help somewhat, but properly balancing the upgrade to do both the CPU and GPU makes a lot more sense.
 

Edited October 19, 20223 yr by Alpine Scenery

50 minutes ago, LCAir said:

I'm confident I'll be satisfied but overclocking the cpu is still there as an option.

requires only a change of the clock multiplier in the BIOS, like from currently 36 to 47 resulting in clock increase from 3.6 GHz to 4.7 GHz. piece of cake. anything higher might require endless testing/modification of different settings with minimal benefit.

The nice thing about todays computers is that they overclock as needed.

sp

Both of you (Alpine and F737) are making sense .. its just different aspects of looking at it .. I think F737Max was just rebutting the specific assertion that the be all end all was CPU clockspeed. When the design of the core and the resultant instructions per clock of the same core is just as important if not more... On top of that Alpine's (and my assertion) of  balancing out the system components properly to meet the needs of the program's demand and the end users expectation is another issue that cannot be ignored. especially in sims.

I also do trust a chart coming from Linus, HUB, and Gamers Nexus,  they have had a couple years under their belt to have refined the process and know what they are doing. This isn't their first rodeo dealing with a sim in a benchmark.

Edited October 19, 20223 yr by Maxis

Similar boat and setup. I have the 8086k (natural clock to 5.0ghz via bios), 2080ti, 32gb ddr4 and windows 10 64bit. I have a 4k Gsync monitor, over 400gb of mods and scenery and it does pretty well. I keep all traffic at 50ish % (includes cars, ships and planes with mods) and TLOD and LOD at 100 roughly. I see a small difference when bumping these up. I run DX11 and DLSS on quality mode and results are pretty good. I keep everything locked to 30fps using gsync and vsync together.

I have no need to change this setup as it runs pretty well overall with this sim (and anything else, really).

Like me, we could upgrade but it would cost a bit. Need a whole new MB, likely a new PSU for upgrading everything else. RAM speed and CPU would really benefit the sim.

At this point, unless something gets fried, I find the sim looking pretty good as it is.

 

I think with your 8700 you can OC by a bit in the BIOS. I think it can get up to 4.7 or higher if you're careful.

Edited October 19, 20223 yr by Sonosusto

56 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

<Ahem> Going to interject here and say that CPU speed is only one part of the equation...

Running at *only* 4.35 - 4.4 GHz (all core) is not harming my experience of MSFS at all. I.P.C. and especially L3 cache is the differentiator at the moment.
If AMD release Zen 4 CPUs with '3D V-Cache' as anticipated, I imagine this chart will look very different in January/February 2023.
 

I don't disagree at all...but the OP is running at 3.7 and, in that it is simple to run it quite a bit faster, speeding it up will do no harm and may make quite a difference...especially with an upgraded GPU.

I have the same CPU, I7 8700K, as the OP. I have it combined with an Gigabyte Z370 HD3P motherboard. This motherboard bios allows this CPU to be overclocked upto 5.0. The overclocks allowed are 4.7, 4.8, 4.9, 5.0. All you have to do is enter the bios and tick whichever one you want. I have mine running at 4.9. This is paired with an RTX 2070 Super. All settings, determined by MSFS 2020 when first installing, on high.    

  

Edited October 19, 20223 yr by rrroberttt
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1 hour ago, Maxis said:

Both of you (Alpine and F737) are making sense .. its just different aspects of looking at it .. I think F737Max was just rebutting the specific assertion that the be all end all was CPU clockspeed. When the design of the core and the resultant instructions per clock of the same core is just as important if not more... On top of that Alpine's (and my assertion) of  balancing out the system components properly to meet the needs of the program's demand and the end users expectation is another issue that cannot be ignored. especially in sims.

^^Bingo!

1 hour ago, Alpine Scenery said:

It just doesn't make much sense to get a real expensive GPU on that older CPU design, why not allocate the money properly to get the maximum FPS per dollar spent. It may help somewhat, but properly balancing the upgrade to do both the CPU and GPU makes a lot more sense.

Correct.

41 minutes ago, AJZip said:

I don't disagree at all...but the OP is running at 3.7 and, in that it is simple to run it quite a bit faster, speeding it up will do no harm and may make quite a difference...especially with an upgraded GPU.

A GTX 1060 is going to be the limiting component with an Ultra-Wide QHD monitor once the OP figures out how to overclock the current CPU.
No harm in seeing the results of the OC on the 8700K, yet it I think the best upgrade solution will be a full new build, if budget allows.

Just replacing the GPU with an RTX 3090 will create problems due to a hefty bottleneck.

The alternative could be to buy an i9-9900KS (same socket as the i7-8700K. Though at that point you would still have a 9.5% bottleneck and would have spent money on a replacement CPU. Why not go for a more modern build at that point?

20 hours ago, Sky_Pilot071 said:

FSX has probably sold more hardware than any other game. 

sp

FSX performance was the biggest culprit of me chasing bigger newer hardware firepower.

If Microsoft, Intel and Nvidia were all in cohoots behind a sales strategy of purposely pushing half optimized PC titles so consumers would desperately throw the latest greatest hardware at it in pursuit of smoothness and high fps, than I sure was the sucker.😂🤣

Just now, blueshark747 said:

FSX performance was the biggest culprit of me chasing bigger newer hardware firepower.

If Microsoft, Intel and Nvidia were all in cohoots behind a sales strategy of purposely pushing half optimized PC titles so consumers would desperately throw the latest greatest hardware at it in pursuit of smoothness and high fps, than I sure was the sucker.😂🤣

FSX was where i drew the line .. I had just gotten FS9 to the point where i was happy then FSX came out .. purchased the deluxe version first day as usual only for some serious disappointment to set in after installation. There was no way i was going to be able to afford to upgrade again and even then when people upgraded to the latest and greatest the sim still ran like word not allowed. 

I remained with FS9 for a while longer till my disk 4 crapped out and then took a looong break from simming till MSFS 2020.

31 minutes ago, Maxis said:

FSX was where i drew the line .. I had just gotten FS9 to the point where i was happy then FSX came out .. purchased the deluxe version first day as usual only for some serious disappointment to set in after installation. There was no way i was going to be able to afford to upgrade again and even then when people upgraded to the latest and greatest the sim still ran like word not allowed. 

I remained with FS9 for a while longer till my disk 4 crapped out and then took a looong break from simming till MSFS 2020.

I wish someone would have warned me with FSX that due to its code and OS limitations( 4GB limit and single core dependencies) between a GTX 690 or a 1080ti wouldn't make much of a performance difference.

Even though I did notice performance gain differences when upgrading through multiple CPUs with faster single core speeds for FSX.

Were the results worth that sort of money being thrown at it? Looking back, NOT AT ALL no monster firebreather performance hardware combo could cure the OOMs and blurries in FSX!

Edited October 19, 20223 yr by blueshark747

4 hours ago, LCAir said:

Very useful information ie the Developer Mode thank you. But I can be confident the GTX 1060 is the bind atm. I'm just wondering how far to upgrade without getting into futility. From what everyone has said it appears the 3090 is just too much with this cpu overclocked or not. At this point I am leaning to the 3080, turning the settings up and then using Developer Mode and the naked eye to see where I'm at. I'm confident I'll be satisfied but overclocking the cpu is still there as an option.

Like you, I presently run an 8700K on an ASUS Z370 motherboard.  No matter which ASUS variant 370 board you have, that BIOS can automatically overclock for you, and it's a mild overclock.   Grant you, the manual overclock can be better in terms of efficiency, but the point is that it does not take a CS degree to overclock these days.  Go to Youtube and watch a video or two on overclocking an ASUS Z370 board...you'll be able to do it, if you've been messing with machines since Commie64 or 386SX days.

You should give some serious consideration to the AMD 7800x3D or 7900x3D line of cpu's which (we hope) will be out soon.  I know I am.  That could really balance out your system with the new gpu you get.  But I totally understand if you want to stick with your current cpu for a while longer.  8700K was a beast in its time.

Comparing CPUs solely on clock speed is a bit like comparing car engines solely on the basis of engine redline.