Thanks for the input everyone.  I think I’m going to hold off for now.  Playing around a bit I was able to get acceptable performance in most big airport situations by dropping my TLOD to 50 from 100…i actually saw a pretty big improvement in smoothness, and that low of a TLOD isn’t something I notice visually flying airliners.  In a GA / remote flight I can crank TLOD up to 300 and get 90-100fps so obviously no issues there.

The other thing on my mind is that it’s likely worth waiting to see if/how MSFS24 makes better use of multiple threads…it may be that my processor will have it’s life extended there, who knows?

As I type this I'm like a kid in a sweetshop, I'm setting up my new build which arrived today.  7800X3D + 4090, I'm currently copying my official and community folders across to the new PC.  Once done I'm going to fire the sim up and see what this bad boy can do.  I'll report back here.

4 hours ago, sidfadc said:

As I type this I'm like a kid in a sweetshop, I'm setting up my new build which arrived today.  7800X3D + 4090, I'm currently copying my official and community folders across to the new PC.  Once done I'm going to fire the sim up and see what this bad boy can do.  I'll report back here.

Oh man!  All setup now and its beyond my wildest dreams coming from an i7 4790k + 1070 8 year old build.

Decided to pull the trigger on my first AMD build:

Motherboard: ASUS ROG STRIX X670E-F GAMING WIFI6E Socket AM5

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D

RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB Series AMD EXPO 32GB (2 x 16GB) 288-Pin PC RAM DDR5 6000 (PC5 48000) CAS Latency 30

PSU: CORSAIR RM1000e Fully Modular Low-Noise ATX Power Supply - ATX 3.0 & PCIe 5.0 Compliant

I'll be reusing my case (Fractal Design Define 7) and my AIO cooler (EVGA CLC 280) - though I think I threw out the AMD retention ring needed for the cooler to work on an AMD board so I had to pony up for a replacement retention kit.

I'll be interested to see how this works to be able to better feed my RTX4080.  I haven't ruled out selling that and buying a 4090 to properly complete the setup but I figured the CPU upgrade was the right first path to take given I'm so main thread limited all the time.  We will see how the new setup runs.

I probably could have kept my current 850w PSU but knowing me I'll likely eventually move to the 4090 so I figured for CDN$200 the extra PSU head room was worth it.

All in (including thermal paste and the replacement retention kit) I'm in for around CDN$1700 after a 15% tax is added on.

 

 

12 hours ago, regis9 said:

I'll be interested to see how this works to be able to better feed my RTX4080.  I haven't ruled out selling that and buying a 4090 to properly complete the setup but I figured the CPU upgrade was the right first path to take given I'm so main thread limited all the time.  We will see how the new setup runs.

Assuming you have the 16GB version, there's nothing wrong with a 4080 - apart from the price - and you've already paid that.

Cheers

Good choice upgrading the power supply. Always better to have a little power on reserve... Enjoy the build.

Finally got all the parts and put it together.  All working good so time for my first flight, YYZ-YUL in the Fenix, a short but performance intense flight.

All I can say is wow, the rumours of the 7800X3D being awesome are very true 😀

At the gate I was getting 65-80fps, and most importantly they were very smooth frames.  Previously I would have been 35-45 with a lot of stutters…it wasn’t a smooth 35-45.  Now climbing out over downtown Toronto I just got 100 fps, amazing!  This is all with frame generation on and TLOD at 100 which was my standard airliner/big city setting before.  Not sure how much I’ll dial that up if at all…lots of time to play around with it.

Quite happy here overall!

Upgrading my GPU from a 3080ti to a 4090 and (for the time being) keeping my 9900KF got rid of my stutters at Inibuilds KJFK with FG enabled (57-60FPS) and without FG enabled (27-30 FPS).  I have also capped  my FPS to 60 (4K TV refresh rate) and enabled vsync in the NCP.  In my case I reckon the 100% increase in VRAM has been very beneficial although I have had to limit AI to about 30% - doesn't fuss me as I have had to do this since forever with various flight sims.

Bruce

Interesting, I had considered trying a 4090 upgrade first (frankly because it’s way easier) but I’m glad now I went the route I did.  I did try JFK lastly night and was at a pretty smooth 45fps with AIG inserting all the traffic it wanted to.  I think the reduced performance impact of traffic is a big boost from the new CPU.

As luck would have it I’m now travelling for ten days but can’t wait to dig into this more when I get home…I have a list of previously challenging performance scenarios to try out 😀

 

This is all really encouraging to hear. I’ve just pulled the trigger on an upgrade to the 7800X3D and RTX4090. I’m also switching over from Intel with no prior AMD experience so I’m intrigued to see how everything goes.

The new PC itself comes with Win10, but I’m planning to upgrade immediately to Win11 (mainly for the ability to calibrate HDR mode), as my current setup is really overblown on the monitor. Are there any other considerations when it comes to Win11 (or arguments against the upgrade? I’m thinking 11 is pretty stable at this point).

 

3 hours ago, Redge said:

Are there any other considerations when it comes to Win11 (or arguments against the upgrade? I’m thinking 11 is pretty stable at this point).

I’d be curious to know the same, I haven’t been aware of a compelling reason for me to upgrade to Windows 11 so far but would be interested to know.

A short addendum: I have encountered an issue where some sounds played through my speakers (3.5mm Jack) are distorted.  This is particularly evident in loud/“aggressive” sounds like external engine sounds, banging/explosion sounds in games.

I googled my Realtek onboard sound (ALC4080) and apparently issues like this are longstanding with the ALC4080.  I wasn’t having the issue with my USB headphones or a bluetooth speaker that I tried connecting, and it sounds like the issue with the ALC4080 may be related to converting a digital sound signal to analogue.  With that in mind I’ve just bought a new set of speakers (Logitech G560)…they include both a USB and Bluetooth option so hopefully this fixes the issue.

Just wanted to give a heads up as apparently the ALC4080 exists in several brands of AMD motherboards in the last few generations…hopefully all works out but I wish I had thought to Google ALC4080 before buying.

I got about 20 fps increase with 7800X3D compared to my I9 10900K with the same GPU and MSFS settings

On 7/21/2023 at 4:39 PM, sidfadc said:

As I type this I'm like a kid in a sweetshop, I'm setting up my new build which arrived today.  7800X3D + 4090, I'm currently copying my official and community folders across to the new PC.  Once done I'm going to fire the sim up and see what this bad boy can do.  I'll report back here.

Sid, I'm about to do a new build, is copying over these 2 folders all that needs to be done?, I thought I was going to have to do a fresh install somehow.

 

 

10 hours ago, Lonesome Cowboy Burt said:

Sid, I'm about to do a new build, is copying over these 2 folders all that needs to be done?, I thought I was going to have to do a fresh install somehow.

 

 

Yep,no need to download and reinstall everything which sits in your OFFICIAL and COMMUNITY folder.

I use the steam version, I simply downloaded it again via Steam which puts core install files here (in my example)

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\MicrosoftFlightSimulator (this path will be wherever you install the Steam client)
This is only 2GB install (quick and easy)

The meat and two veg (as I like to call it) is your OFFICAL and COMMUNITY folders which contain 100's of GBs and something you don't want to download again because it will take forever!

So copy both folders into your new build (wherever you like, can be a different drive altogether (like mine).  My folders are here...

D:\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages

So under \Packages I have this

D:\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Official

D:\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages\Community

Its REALLY important you have the \Packages in the path or else the sim won't pick it up

So at this point you should have

1. installed the steam client (wherever you like)

2. Copied your Official and Community folders as above (to a location or drive of your choice)

Next step, simply launch the sim and during setup it should ask you to browse to your Packages folder.  Simply point it to this folder, in my setup its D:\Microsoft Flight Simulator\Packages and the sim will just load everything as per normal, it won't download a single thing!

Job done.