Hello,

I've stopped simming couple of years back due to having some other priorities and my computer being too old. P3D with all the addons was slow and MSFS as well. Currently still have 6700K, not overclocked now, but was before to 4.8, and GTX1080ti, 32GB RAM.

I am thinking of getting 13700K, a Z790 board with DDR4 RAM, 1000W PSU and RTX 4080 FE.

Why DDR4? Because my current RAM is quite fast, two sets of G.Skill 16 GB DDR4-3600 C16 (F4-3600C16D-16GTZ), and the appropriate DDR5 would be ridiculously expensive to get better latencies.

I also believe 13700K is correct, as I think i9 is more for workstation work, while i7 is more for gaming, which is OK for me.

Would you say the path is correct?

Thank you

Sounds reasonable to me.

I think that would be a pretty robust flight sim computer.

Looks like a solid plan to me.  If you're planning to use your current case, just make sure that 4080 will fit.  I've done repeated builds using one of the biggest full-tower cases made from middle of the last decade and didn't give it a second thought, only to discover that my new 4090 was 2 inches longer than would fit due to the drive cage placement.  Really killed me to have to give up all those 230mm fans in that trusty old Coolermaster HAF-X.

After reading quite a lot (yes! I know...), I am thinking about, if it indeed is the right choice to go for 13700K, or should I go for 13900K? I do have a custom water loop, so I am not really worried about temperatures. Overclocking is an option too, if the chip gives it.

Also, I did go for DDR5, for two reasons: 6400/32 kit is a good performer. And also I can sell my current configuration as "all in one". Maybe easier to get rid of, don't know.

Edited February 12, 20233 yr by SimonC

There's a bit of scope creep happening here since your OP. Before you know it, you'll be convincing yourself that a 13900K with DDR5 should really be paired with a 4090 and up goes the cost again. There's nothing wrong with this, if that's the performance you think you will need and are prepared to pay extra to get it, but I think you should re-ask yourself what performance do you actually want and how much are you prepared to pay for it.

If you are not sure, then I can tell you (through my own experience of a similar spec) that the original upgrade spec you mentioned will pull 60 FPS minimum @ 4K ultra with any complex addon and with frame generation on in MSFS. If that is enough then I suggest you stick with your original upgrade spec.

 

Not really scared of that. Reason being that I could afford both 4090 and 13700k, and also more expensive RAM and motherboard, go extreme over locking etc, like I did years ago. But that’s beyond the point. It’s less about the money but rather price performance ratio. I know P3D was/is much CPU bound and my goal with this system is to achieve excellent performance but within the bounds. I am not looking to squeeze marginally better performance with double the price. Also not for best price performance ratio. Rather somewhere in between.
Besides, I will most likely overclock slightly just for the sake of it, tweaker in me most likely can’t let that go :D.

I also lowered the PSU to 850w, as 1000w isn’t needed.

So fine. It’s ordered anyway already, looking forward to seeing the system perform. 

About fitting the 4080: it will get a watercooler block, so not an issue.

7 hours ago, SimonC said:

Not really scared of that. Reason being that I could afford both 4090 and 13700k, and also more expensive RAM and motherboard, go extreme over locking etc, like I did years ago. But that’s beyond the point. It’s less about the money but rather price performance ratio. I know P3D was/is much CPU bound and my goal with this system is to achieve excellent performance but within the bounds. I am not looking to squeeze marginally better performance with double the price. Also not for best price performance ratio. Rather somewhere in between.
Besides, I will most likely overclock slightly just for the sake of it, tweaker in me most likely can’t let that go :D.

I also lowered the PSU to 850w, as 1000w isn’t needed.

So fine. It’s ordered anyway already, looking forward to seeing the system perform. 

About fitting the 4080: it will get a watercooler block, so not an issue.

The problem with fitting my 4090 was length, not width.  14 inches!!

With RealBench runnning on all cores at 5.6/4.4 GHz, I'm measuring 800-850W at the wall for the computer less display.  I'd really reconsider that PSU downgrade if you go with the 13900K.

The 13900K is a really good fit with P3D, as it allows you to independently clock-up one or more P-cores of your choosing (you can experimentally determine which ones are the strongest) and P3Dv5 allows you to assign the main thread exclusively to such an overclocked core.  Using the thermal velocity boost feature on my ASUS Maximus 790 Hero mobo, I'm able to keep that one all-important core pushed-up an extra 200MHz whenever CPU package temp permits, and it will automatically downclock when a big gulp of texture loads or other high transient demand hits and momentarily spikes the temp.  And the 13900K's 36/32MB of L3/L2 cache is worth having, IMHO. 

As to price vs performance, it should be no surprise that when you get up to the top of that curve it steepens considerably--that last extra ounce of performance pretty much always costs a pound if you want it.

I do have to ask though: where does 13700K fall short compared to 13900K, then? I believe you can do the same core-assignment in P3D, and also independently clock one core more than other? On another thread you mention that if i9 gets too hot, you can turn off HT or deactivate E-cores. So why then buy E-cores on a chip, if only have to deactivate them, so to get better overclock?

About the cache: what is the real benefit of having more L3/L2 cache?

22 hours ago, Reset XPDR said:

There's a bit of scope creep happening here since your OP. Before you know it, you'll be convincing yourself that a 13900K with DDR5 should really be paired with a 4090 and up goes the cost again. There's nothing wrong with this, if that's the performance you think you will need and are prepared to pay extra to get it, but I think you should re-ask yourself what performance do you actually want and how much are you prepared to pay for it.

If you are not sure, then I can tell you (through my own experience of a similar spec) that the original upgrade spec you mentioned will pull 60 FPS minimum @ 4K ultra with any complex addon and with frame generation on in MSFS. If that is enough then I suggest you stick with your original upgrade spec.

 

Great advice here. 

Size of the 4080 was one of the reasons i went with a 7900xt and am so far very pleased with it. I have a mid size case, everything layed out well and good cooling so i really didn't want to get a bigger one. has worked out well. Currently have a i9-9900 cpu and will upgrade it shortly but have yet to decide if it'll be a i9-13900 variant or a X3D unit from Radeon.

I enjoy threads such as this as I don't stay up on this topic till the time to upgrade everything comes along.

1 minute ago, dbw1 said:

but have yet to decide if it'll be a i9-13900 variant or a X3D unit from Radeon.

Same boat here…I’m anxiously awaiting some comparative benchmarks!

@Bob Scott, it would be really helpful if you could post and pin what settings you recommend for the CPU as well as BIOS settings to run core0 at the highest speed whilst the other less critical cores can run slower.

It doesn’t sound like the utility Asus provide can set things as you describe.