Greetings,

After 10 – yes TEN – years serving me well in my siming ventures it is time to refresh my sim PC. Well it is going to be a more radical „refresh“.  As with my current setup, this will be a dedicated MSFS machine and this time a decided to go with team red with the following

MB – Asus ROG STRIX X670E-E GAMING WIFI

CPU – 7900X

Cooler – Noctua NH-D15 Chromax Black

RAM – G.Skill 32GB KIT DDR5 6000MHz CL30 Trident Z5 NEO AMD EXPO

VGA – Sapphire RX 7900 XT/Gaming/20GB/GDDR6 (might go with an Asus RX7900 XT if I could get one simply just to match the motherboard manufacturer)

HDD – Samsung 980 PRO 2TB NVMe

Case – LianLi Lancool 216

Might put a couple of additional NH-14 fans plus a 500MB Sata SSD from the current set up.

PSU – here comes my question.

A have a spare EVGA Supernova 850 G2 Plus Gold (product number 220-G2-0850-XR if it helps)laying unused for about 5 years.

The question to you hardware gurus out there is if there is a catch somewhere should look into what could be a No-Go to hook it up to the system. I see nothing obvious as far as I can tell from looking into the MB user guide and all the connector should be fine I just don't want to fry the parts. Don't think I need anything the ATX 3.0 standard provides. These are starting to show up just recently so I would leave it for a later upgrade.

 You might say the X3D is around the corner. Well that's correct and the one I could consider depending on the availability. However even this set up will give me a significant boost and I can update later to a Zen5 whatever X3D comes in a couple of years. And would like to put the system together in coming weeks.

Im also aware of the clearance issues I can run into with the RAM and the second fan on the cooler. I need to see how much the case allows to move the fan as I build it. In the worst case I will replace it with a smaller 120mm one.

Thanks for reading through.

Alex

 

I would go team green with frame gen.  I'm not sure if amd has something similar planned or not but I basically quadrupled my fps from a 1080 Ti to 4080.

An 850w would easily run the 4080 or your proposed team red card.

Thanks for drooping by. Well, I'm not that fixated on the FPS. I could count on my two hands how many times I brought up the FPS counter in FSX and P3D since I started with it about 12 years ago. And never in MSFS. In fact Asobo did an amazing job optimizing it that even on my „stone age“ setup – 4770K overclocked to 4,5GHz, GTX1080Ti, with 16Gigs of RAM and a 500GB SATA SSD – feels really fluid and smooth. Of course I'm avoiding the most dense and demanding areas for now. So I'm not that concerned about this. And to be honest – not that I cannot afford it, but I'm just having a really hard time justifying the price of the current nVidia cards.

My biggest worry right now is the suitability of the PSU. I hope the MB has sufficient safety features built in that it could take care of it if any issues arise.

Keep the blue side up.

Alex

The price is high but even for a 7900xtx isn't it over 1k usd once you add in tax etc?  

I found a used 3080 ti for about 800.  

The 4080 I got was 1250 or something before tax.  

I guess the days of 300 dollar mid tier cards are long gone.

Fwiw I just came from an identical system about a year ago...I had a 4790K at 4.4ghz but otherwise the same.  At 1080p yeah it ran pretty well except with heavy addons and ai (you know the usual suspects).  With all that stuff I was in the mid to high teens once I got my 1440p monitor.  With the 4080 and 12700K now same scenario and FG enabled I'm hitting 60-80 fps.   Rural areas with the old system about 40ish.  New system 120+

Money well spent imo!

2 hours ago, alex0171 said:

My biggest worry right now is the suitability of the PSU.

As long as the PSU has been stored well, eg. in packaging or at the very least covered up, I would have no concerns using the PSU you mention with your upgrade components. It certainly can deliver enough power for the job and the brand is solid.

21 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

The price is high but even for a 7900xtx isn't it over 1k usd once you add in tax etc?  

Well, even the 7900XT is starting slightly above 1000€ here. Comparing it with a 4080 is giving me price delta between 200 to 600 Euros depending on the model and features. Which is a surprisingly large spread. I think I take the risk and will stay with my original selection.

19 hours ago, Reset XPDR said:

As long as the PSU has been stored well, eg. in packaging or at the very least covered up, I would have no concerns using the PSU you mention with your upgrade components. It certainly can deliver enough power for the job and the brand is solid.

It was in the original box, so it should be fine. Thanks for your comments.

Alex

The Antec 900 watt PSU in my current computer sat unused, sealed in its box for several years before being used.  It works just fine.

Here's a pro tip: plug all your components into a build on pcpartspicker.com. Not only will it highlight many of the potential mechanical/cabling issues but it will also provide a maximum power draw estimate. For my recent build, it calculated 884W. In a test, I hit an actual peak of 871W.

4 hours ago, odourboy said:

Here's a pro tip: plug all your components into a build on pcpartspicker.com. Not only will it highlight many of the potential mechanical/cabling issues but it will also provide a maximum power draw estimate. For my recent build, it calculated 884W. In a test, I hit an actual peak of 871W.

Hm. I've just tried to identify your psu in your signature, and I failed. You as a pro, what would you recommend if one or two calculations result in 884 or 900 W. I know that there are 1050W psu devices on the market, or better, have been available when I was lookin for the psu topic.

And, if two questions in one post are allowed, what in your signature is the reason so that you leave the store with a 900 or 1050W recommendation? Is it the new rtx 4000?

For p3dv4.5 I like to have a stronger cpu this year, and your configuration somehow is a handbook. The only two differences which I see here is, Intel cpu + AMD radeon video card, and 650W instead of 1050W, the rest in your configuration seems like a good friend to me, Intel chipset, Asus mobo, ....

The 13900k isn't that heavy on the psu, with 125W, or what would you say? Would your calculation be a little bit smaller with a 13900 (with 65W on the paper)?

1 hour ago, JohnDeSoto said:

I've just tried to identify your psu in your signature, and I failed.

I'm using an MSI A1000G PCIE5 ATX3.0 PSU. The power measurement I took was for the complete system, which therefore includes the power used/wasted by the PSU itself.

10 hours ago, odourboy said:

Here's a pro tip: plug all your components into a build on pcpartspicker.com. Not only will it highlight many of the potential mechanical/cabling issues but it will also provide a maximum power draw estimate. For my recent build, it calculated 884W. In a test, I hit an actual peak of 871W.

I did this for the components I have now less the second monitor, keyboard, and X530 speakers, and all my FS peripherals and less the USB3 hub (I have about 8 USB devices plugged in).  It said 645w.  I measured with kill a watt last month while using VR in the heaviest scenarios and it only peaked at 520w.  In 2D (1440p monitor plus secondary 1080p) I only saw 400w.

So I think that site overestimates the need by quite a bit or I have a heck of an efficient rig lol.

I pay about 13 cents per kWh in my area so over the last month I've spent about 10 USD to run this PC.  I turn it off at night if I remember and I run MSFS about 14 hrs a week (among other titles like call of duty).

If I had known the 4080 was this efficient would have gone for a 4090, even with my 850w psu, because I like VR 🙂

In 5 years I'll revisit - I don't need to upgrade anything till then.

16 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

So I think that site overestimates the need by quite a bit or I have a heck of an efficient rig lol.

I stand corrected... I misquoted my system power in my post. 871W was my total setup including monitor, soundbar and sub. My PC itself hit a high of 722W vs pcpartpicker's estimate of 884. Sorry about that everyone!

Better to overestimate power needs than to underestimate.

GPU - I just upgraded from a 2080 to the 7900xt and I am really pleased with it.

CPU -  I will be going to a 79007950 of some version depending on availability and cost. Currently have a I9-9900k.

I got 4 years out of the 2080 and i9-9900k but it's time to upgrade.