Since I don't have enough usable kidneys left to afford building a new system for MSFS, I'm pondering an "interim" upgrade to squeeze a bit more life out of the old girl. She's an "off the rack" i7 7700 @3.6GHz with 16Gb RAM and a generic GTX 1070 with 8Gb. MSFS runs "okay" with a reasonable expectation of performance from PMDG, payware airports, FSTL, etc... "Reasonable" meaning living with 10-15fps slideshows on the ground and in the pattern at mostly medium settings. I'm considering bumping the RAM to 32Gb and going to an external SSD (USB) mainly because both of these can be purchased without having to compromise my morals on a street corner. I'm not looking for a miracle boost in performance but would like to see if I could get a bit more smoothness for the couple hundred bucks I'd be spending. I'd like to hear your opinions (on the upgrade, not compromising my morals 😎)

Thanks!
Brian

 

 

Edited April 28, 20233 yr by Starlifter60

4 hours ago, Starlifter60 said:

Since I don't have enough usable kidneys left to afford building a new system for MSFS, I'm pondering an "interim" upgrade to squeeze a bit more life out of the old girl. She's an "off the rack" i7 7700 @3.6GHz with 16Gb RAM and a generic GTX 1070 with 8Gb. MSFS runs "okay" with a reasonable expectation of performance from PMDG, payware airports, FSTL, etc... "Reasonable" meaning living with 10-15fps slideshows on the ground and in the pattern at mostly medium settings. I'm considering bumping the RAM to 32Gb and going to an external SSD (USB) mainly because both of these can be purchased without having to compromise my morals on a street corner.

Brian in my opinion man...just compromise your morals and sell yourself to the night.  In other words, I wouldn't put any money into your current system.  Instead, I would save all the money you make compromising your morals and put it towards a new machine.

You could actually spec out a budget build that would rock MSFS right now...AMD 5800X3D (which is last-gen but a great cpu for MSFS)...if your memory is DDR4 you could re-use it with the AMD build, and if it's not, 32 GB of DDR4 isn't all that expensive.  You would need an AMD motherboard but the AM4 (last-gen) boards are cheaper these days.

As for video card, there are some budget options and more appearing all the time...you can find a used 2080ti for cheap and that was a fine card in its day.  Or a 3080 card.  And if you're leery about a used vidcard (I totally understand) there are some budget AMD cards out today which have a lot of vram for the dollar.  If you want to dip your toes into Frame Generation then you would have to spend a little more, but a 4070 card gets you in the door for frame gen, which is a big deal for MSFS.

There are also budget builds centered around a 13600K cpu, which is a fine cpu for the sim, if you want to go Intel...although at this particular time I'd still go AMD if MSFS is the target.  So yeah, compromise those morals but save your ill-gotten gains towards a new machine.  Putting money into your existing rig isn't going to do much for it.

Brian I don't understand your fps performance. Before I went with 3080 I had a 1070, 16GB RAM and a Samsung 850 SSD, and with PMDG and payware airports (mostly other than FSDT Ohare) I'd maintain fairly solid 30 fps, sometimes dips to 24 or so. Medium and high settings, TLOD and OLOD at 100, and the ONLY thing that really killed my performance was a bunch of live AI. I use PSXT/RT with AIG liveries and anymore than 20 - 30 AI at a payware airport hammered my system. I'm still running a 6700K at 4.2GHz.

I can tell you that high or ultra cloud settings will overwhelm the 1070.

You should be seeing betting performance than are getting with your current system.