Swap 5950X for 5800x3d?

[1Wolf 9]

Built a new system about a year and a half ago (May 2021) for flight sims (Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 & DCS) & other gaming. For flight sims I use only VR. For non-flight sim games I use a monitor.

AMD 5950X
ASUS Crosshair VIII Dark Hero
GeForce RTX 3090

Over the past year and a half the system has worked great at regular gaming (Like Cyberpunk 2077).

However, for DCS in VR I am GPU limited and it struggles. Common problem. DCS is always a battle for more GPU and turning up graphics options 😉 I'm considering an upgrade to a 4090 for this.

For MSFS 2020 I am CPU limited. I've spent the past couple months trying everything I could to get every last drop of performance out of that 5950X. Its better than it was, but I started reading here and on other forms about some decent performance gains in flight sims and gaming for the 5800x3d. I've been following that other thread in this forum about the 5800x3d performance.  I don't do much productivity work with my machine - mostly flight sims and the occasional other game as well.

Anyone here run MSFS 2020 and DCS and made a similar CPU switch? Were you happy with the result in DCS & MSFS 2020?

Can I just swap out the 5950X for a 5800X3D without re-installing my OS? Or would swapping a CPU require a complete OS reinstall to get best performance or avoid problems? I've never actually JUST swapped a CPU before. In the past, I've stuck with one CPU until it was time to upgrade the entire machine and then built a new machine.  Never just the CPU.

Any advice or personal experience would be appreciated. Thanks!

[F737MAX 6,040]

5 hours ago, 1Wolf said:

Can I just swap out the 5950X for a 5800X3D without re-installing my OS?

Yes. I have swapped a 1700X for a 3700X on one motherboard, then the same 3700X on a different motherboard for a 5800X3D. No issues.
When changing motherboards, I did an O/S reinstall as my Windows was getting bloated. Also, I took a safety-first approach, as a change of motherboard with the same O/S could (in theory) cause some issues.

No idea how DCS performs with a 5800X3D, yet for MSFS there have been plenty of discussions regarding its performance vs. 5950X or Intel equivalents.

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/625586-raptor-lake-smooth-msfs-performance/

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/617534-amd-ryzen-7-5800x3d-review/

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/617599-ryzen-7-5800x3d-brilliant-msfs-performance/page/22/

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/fps-difference-verification-between-amd-5950x-and-5800x3d-at-haneda-airport-rjtt-34l-straight-out-flight/531349/43

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/fps-difference-verification-between-amd-5950x-and-5800x3d-at-haneda-airport-rjtt-34l-straight-out-flight/531349/37

[westman 259]

i changed my 5950x for a 5800x3d, without re-installing OS , then a changed a 3700 on a 370 mobo with 5950x only flash the bios no os re-install all work great , 5800x3d was well wort it.

my next step is to swap gpu.s retire the 2080ti on the 370 system for my old 3090 and a 4090 on 5800x3d have the 4090 deliverd without cooling