4 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

The problem with spending more on a GPU is that the prices rise exponentially with each step up in power.

Its the price of admission to the GPU future proofing party Im afraid Chris.

You wont affect it by not buying, so determine what you need, suck it up and hold your nose when you flash the credit card.

I'm financing my 5090 on a 2 yr interest free credit card specifically for the purpose.  No interest, I'll pay £75 a month each month off and in two years its done.  No massive cost all in one go, but the best performance I can get probably for the next 2 years at least for a little over £2 a day.  And less than that if anyone wants to buy my second hand 3090 which is still going very strong.

42 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

The problem with spending more on a GPU is that the prices rise exponentially with each step up in power.

Agreed.. and your proposed system seems to me to provide a nice balance for an 1080p based display.

IMHO, you do not need DLSS and all that stuff.. just use the regular TAA quality and set the fps to 60.

You'll be amazed at the experience... I certainly am.  🙂

7 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Is this a dangerous assumption... are you saying there is hard data to support a one for one swap as you outline, or is it more likely that they've simply optimised assets and LODs to reduce the VRAM required without actually palming it off to system RAM, because I'm not seeing a substantial increase in system RAM use? (I run TLOD 500 and OLOD 200 in 4k ultra)

That's right no one here knows what they are doing specifically.  What I notice are two things:  1, there is far less VRAM in use now then when I installed 2024 a few months ago which I think was by SU1 but forget for sure.  And 2, I get far more microstutters now corroborated with FTV captures by CapFrameX.  And I also see about the same amount more system ram in use that I see less VRAM in use.  So the question back at you is exactly this:  WAS something sacrificed in ordered to accommodate graphics systems w/ less VRAM?  Seems to fit w/ my experience, at least it's highly plausible and I would go on to say probable.

7 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

My system runs MSFS smooth, but the sound stuttering was one of the reasons I went with XP12.  No sound stuttering at all in that sim (or any other game/sim I have).

No sound stuttering here either MrBitst in both MSFS and other games/apps.

8 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

The problem with spending more on a GPU is that the prices rise exponentially with each step up in power.

True, but I would avoid the 5060:

If the 5060Ti is your price point $450, then I would go with AMD 9070 16GB (not XT) a $600 … take the $100 saving on the cheaper CPU and that will get you $550 for GPU … toss in an extra $50 and you get the AMD 9070.  See Steve’s video, compares many GPUs and the AMD 9070 is significantly faster (2X) than the nVidia 5060Ti 

Rob.

6 hours ago, Noel said:

No sound stuttering here either MrBitst in both MSFS and other games/apps.

Very frustrating as our systems are similar. Like another poster said, the sound crackling is so bad it actually pauses or crashes the SIM!

15 hours ago, Republic3D said:

for some users it might be the 5000 series GPUs and the drivers that don't work well with them. 

I corrected your statement a little.

My case: 5090, (always) latest drivers, using Nvidia HD audio - no sound stutters in either sim.

43 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Very frustrating as our systems are similar. Like another poster said, the sound crackling is so bad it actually pauses or crashes the SIM!

Wasn't the sound crackling issue linked somehow to that hardware acceleration option "HAGS" in the advanced Windows settings, that needed to be disabled or enabled or I don't remember anymore ? (with system restart in between, if I'm not mistaken...)

11 hours ago, Noel said:

That's right no one here knows what they are doing specifically.  What I notice are two things:  1, there is far less VRAM in use now then when I installed 2024 a few months ago which I think was by SU1 but forget for sure.  And 2, I get far more microstutters now corroborated with FTV captures by CapFrameX.  And I also see about the same amount more system ram in use that I see less VRAM in use.  So the question back at you is exactly this:  WAS something sacrificed in ordered to accommodate graphics systems w/ less VRAM?  Seems to fit w/ my experience, at least it's highly plausible and I would go on to say probable.

Could be I don't know.  Seeing 15Gb VRAM and 30Gb system RAM in use this morning...  I think the real answer is they've tweaked lots of things and in combination they could have all sorts of different impacts, possibly even system dependent.

Do you need to update your signature, Kevin? You say that you have a 5090 now.

18 hours ago, SayAgain said:

FYI the AMD CPU itself can’t generate sound, that comes from the motherboard and audio.

In the late 90's, I had a call look at a HP Workstation with coloured dots on the display. I changed parts (starting with the video card) that made no difference until I got to the CPU. That can't be right I thought, so I put the CPU in another workstation and the dots appeared. Verdict: CPU. Called HP for a warranty replacement and they didn't believe me, "the CPU won't be causing your issue". I eventually persuaded them to come out and their sceptical engineer had to admit I was right.

I'm not saying the CPU is causing sound issues in MSFS, just that you should never discount something because it doesn't seem possible 🙂

20 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

The 7800X3D is about a hundred pounds cheaper than the 9800X3D. How would that compare with the i7 14700KF?

This may help:

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2919vs5723vs5299vs6344/Intel-i5-7600K-vs-Intel-i7-14700KF-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-7800X3D-vs-AMD-Ryzen-7-9800X3D

I included your current CPU too. Take a look into the single-core results. Please consider that the Passmark benchmark (on which these results are based) can't accurately reflect the effects of the bigger L3 cache on performance.

Edited July 18, 2025Jul 18 by Luis Hernandez

An alternative view (I like Jay but his data can sometimes be less accurate):

Keep in mind the focus is likely 3D shooters, not flight sims.

22 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Its the price of admission to the GPU future proofing party Im afraid Chris.

You wont affect it by not buying, so determine what you need, suck it up and hold your nose when you flash the credit card.

I'm financing my 5090 on a 2 yr interest free credit card specifically for the purpose.  No interest, I'll pay £75 a month each month off and in two years its done.  No massive cost all in one go, but the best performance I can get probably for the next 2 years at least for a little over £2 a day.  And less than that if anyone wants to buy my second hand 3090 which is still going very strong.

Hi Kevin , You seem to be on top of the game when you talk about GPU´s etc. I am late to the upgrade party to say the least but my old system is still serving me pretty well in 1440P on a 4K low budget TV captures at 25HZ/FPS.

Later this year i WILL finally be getting a new PC and this time not building itself.

I guess my main isseu here is the GPU - in which the price for a OC 5080 vs a std 5090 is still alot. 

How much VRAM is the A350-900/1000 and A380 actually using at 4K 60 fps today ?

Thanks in advance 

Michael Moe

Edited July 18, 2025Jul 18 by Michael Moe

12 hours ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Very frustrating as our systems are similar. Like another poster said, the sound crackling is so bad it actually pauses or crashes the SIM!

When this sound crackling happens to me, I visit the Sound settings in MSFS and turn off the stupid  selection of use windows default for sound and mic. And I make sure that both sound and mic use exactly the same choice, whatever that choice may be. And the problem goes away completely.