Hey everyone. I hope y'all had a nice summer. My usual routine is to spend as much time as I can boating on the Chesapeake Bay from April through October. This year, i went that entire time with no time in MSFS of either version. 

I started flying again about 2 weeks ago. It took quite a while to update everything in both sims. Lots of changes everywhere. There were new versions of the Fenix, the PMDG 737s. GSX, AIG, Navigraph, as well as both simulators. 

2020, for the most part, ran pretty well right from the start. 2024, on the other hand was a stuttery, jittery, sluggish, mess. I deleted all of the caches (simulator and Nvidia) for both sims, and that greatly improved the performance of both. From then on, both have been running fantastically. I'm very impressed with 2024 now. It had never been usable before for me for my type of flying. That is no longer the case. My flights in the Fenix in 2024 have been superb. I like the ATC changes. No more getting 25 altitude changes before TOC. Seems like they are living up to "expect XX,XXX 10 minutes after departure" line and clearing me to TOC on the 2nd or 3rd altitude change. I was getting pretty smooth performance, but my 10850K CPU was getting mainthread limited which was causing some stuttering at 3rd party airports (during ground ops, departure , and arrival, as well as the GSX animations).

I started perusing Micro Center's web site looking for an AMD bundle to upgrade my system. I was still running a 2080Ti w/12Gb, which I really hadn't planned on upgrading for a while, when I caught lightning in a bottle. MC listed an open box 5080 w/16Gb for $899, which was exactly $100 less than I paid for my 2080 Ti back in 2019. I put in my cart to reserve it and, drove to the store to ask why it had been opened. The guy in the build it center said that a customer had called them asking a question about adjusting the included bracket that holds up the end of the card to prevent it from sagging, and they needed to open a box to look at one. They only removed the shrink wrap from the box to open it, and never even took the card out of the anti static bag. I apparently put it in my cart 5 minutes after they put it on the web site at the open box price. MC has great warranty and return policies, so I took the plunge. Well, all I can say is that I was wrong. My 2080 Ti was a huge contributing factor to the performance issues I was having. Far more than I had previously thought. Upon installing the 5080, which also required a new case, since it would not fit in my old one despite being listed as a "small form factor" (SFF) card, I saw significant improvements in sim performance in both sims. I do not check frames within MSFS. I simply go by how it looks and feels, so I do not have any numbers. HWINFO is showing high 40s, but I do not know if that is accurate. I run 3440x1440, so I can believe that is in the ball park. I do know that I can land with total and complete smoothness in both sims at the one airport that always caused major stutters for me, Verticalsim's KTPA Tampa. It's night and day. I've done landings in both the Fenix in 2024 and the PMDG 737 in 2020 that have been consistently exceeded my expectations. I'm happy. The CPU upgrade is now on hold. 

As to both simulators, I think MS & Asobo have done a very good job with both over the summer. I'm amazed at how many things have changed for the better. Fenix, AIG, Navigraph (love the in game Simbrief), and FSDT have all also improved for the better. I'm glad that I stepped away for a while. I had been getting frustrated with the little nits in both sims destroying my experience. I'm really looking forward to a nice winter full of flight simming. I'm glad that both versions are performing well now as I am keeping 2020 around to be my 737 simulator. I'm not buying the PMDGs for 2024 unless they add substantial new functionality or improvements that make it worth while. 

Who knows? I might just end up giving myself that AMD bundle for Christmas... I've been (mostly) good this year.   

Boating sounds rough haha!  I drove over that bridge about 10 years ago on our way out to Rehoboth during a family vacation.  I really like big bridges but my wife hates them.  I also remember driving past that little airport, Bay Bridge W29, and then flying to it in the sim once I got home from the trip.

edit:  Here it is for 2024:  https://flightsim.to/file/92977/w29-bay-bridge-airport-stevensville-md

The 5080 is a good card, but I'd absolutely consider an AMD x3D cpu (9800x3d etc) with 64GB ram especially if you plan to move forward with 2024.

Edited November 9, 2025Nov 9 by ryanbatc

3 hours ago, ryanbatc said:

Boating sounds rough haha!  I drove over that bridge about 10 years ago on our way out to Rehoboth during a family vacation.  I really like big bridges but my wife hates them.  I also remember driving past that little airport, Bay Bridge W29, and then flying to it in the sim once I got home from the trip.

edit:  Here it is for 2024:  https://flightsim.to/file/92977/w29-bay-bridge-airport-stevensville-md

The 5080 is a good card, but I'd absolutely consider an AMD x3D cpu (9800x3d etc) with 64GB ram especially if you plan to move forward with 2024.

Thank you, Ryan. I had the 2020 version of Stevensvile, so I'll be sure to grab the new one shortly. My father worked at KMTN, so the trip to Stevensville for the "$100 hamburger" is a a very fond memory (although we always ended up getting grab crab cakes instead). I believe the place was called Henderson's at the time.  

Edited November 9, 2025Nov 9 by MDFlier

You'll have another "wow" moment going from a 10850K to something like a 7800X3D or 9800X3D.  I'd go for the 9800X3D + 64 GB as Ryan suggests...it should give good service just like your 10850K.

I went from a 5800x3d with 64Gb ram and a 4090 to a 9800X3d with 64 GB and the same 4090.. and it was a massive upgrade, much bigger than I was expecting considering the 5800X3D is still a beast of a gaming CPU.

If budget allows, you should absolutely get an X3d chip.

My only hesitation is that I am wholly unfamiliar with the AMD architecture. I guess I need to start reading because it is clearly the way to go these days. I've been immersed in Intel for over 40 years. Time for this old dog to learn some new tricks.

I don't plan on going into giant screens or 4k at this time, so I think a nice AMD rig with this 5080 would be the bees knees at 3440x1440. 

31 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

My only hesitation is that I am wholly unfamiliar with the AMD architecture. I guess I need to start reading because it is clearly the way to go these days. I've been immersed in Intel for over 40 years. Time for this old dog to learn some new tricks.

I don't plan on going into giant screens or 4k at this time, so I think a nice AMD rig with this 5080 would be the bees knees at 3440x1440. 

I just jumped to AMD after insisting on Intel for decades. Couldn't be happier (and quieter and cooler).  

1 hour ago, MDFlier said:

My only hesitation is that I am wholly unfamiliar with the AMD architecture. I guess I need to start reading because it is clearly the way to go these days. I've been immersed in Intel for over 40 years. Time for this old dog to learn some new tricks.

I don't plan on going into giant screens or 4k at this time, so I think a nice AMD rig with this 5080 would be the bees knees at 3440x1440. 

Why do you need to know about the architecture? The user experience is really no different, windows and all programs work exactly the same, just faster and quieter and cooler. 
 

The fact that they use CCDs or stacked cache or all that is interesting to CPU nerds, but it makes zero difference if you know nothing about all that. Just use it as you would normally use a computer. 

1 hour ago, MDFlier said:

My only hesitation is that I am wholly unfamiliar with the AMD architecture. I guess I need to start reading because it is clearly the way to go these days. I've been immersed in Intel for over 40 years. Time for this old dog to learn some new tricks.

I don't plan on going into giant screens or 4k at this time, so I think a nice AMD rig with this 5080 would be the bees knees at 3440x1440. 

I also was an Intel groupie for many years. I built a computer with intel cpu for 2020 when first released. For 2024, I rebuilt again using a AMD 79003D. And n3ever looked back as far as performance goes. I also use a 2080TI card and it runs very well with 2024. I personally haven't seen any reason to upgrade to a 5000 series cards other than saying I own one. The 2080TI with 12GB's of vram runs nice for me.

20 hours ago, JonathanC said:

Why do you need to know about the architecture? The user experience is really no different, windows and all programs work exactly the same, just faster and quieter and cooler. 
 

The fact that they use CCDs or stacked cache or all that is interesting to CPU nerds, but it makes zero difference if you know nothing about all that. Just use it as you would normally use a computer. 

The number one reason that understanding the technical design of the AMD architecture matters to me is that I am able to use that knowledge to make more intelligent part selections when building the system. 

You can give me all of the parts for a 350 Chevy engine in the back of a pickup truck, and in 2 days I'll have you on the road. Fill the bed of that truck with Mazda rotary engine parts, and you'll be walking for months. Sure, they're both engines, but they operate in radically different ways. That's how I feel about Intel vs AMD. 

Edited November 11, 2025Nov 11 by MDFlier

My credit card is spooling up to purchase a new PC, and I am definitely getting one of those AMD X3D CPUs this time.

22 hours ago, Bigmack said:

I also was an Intel groupie for many years. I built a computer with intel cpu for 2020 when first released. For 2024, I rebuilt again using a AMD 79003D. And n3ever looked back as far as performance goes. I also use a 2080TI card and it runs very well with 2024. I personally haven't seen any reason to upgrade to a 5000 series cards other than saying I own one. The 2080TI with 12GB's of vram runs nice for me.

You sound like me. Every computer I have ever had was built with making Flight Simulator "flyable" as the purpose. I started simming back in the Sublogic days, and have actually played every version of Flight Simulator (and on every platform - TRS80s, Apple IIs, every Intel x86, but never AMD). At each new release, I would go the the computer show at the fair grounds and buy upgrades with the intention of improving Flight Simulator performance (my basement could be a museum of computer technology. I could probably go down there right now and build a working Intel 8086 based system with the parts I still have). Sadly, that process repeated itself every couple years until Steam released their version of FSX. That was the very first version that loaded up on a system that I already had and got what I considered to be acceptable performance. The "chase" pretty much ended at that point and ever since I've felt that my upgrades are simply allowing me to enhance an already good experience by giving me more headroom to add features and functionality. We live in exciting times to be sure. To be honest, I was blown out of the water when MSFS 2020 was announced. Since I was 12 years old, I've always known and expected that we would be able to fly over an exact replica of the real world. I just didn't expect MS to start working on that as "early" they did (I had figured it would have been right about now).   

The 2080 Ti did run "very well", but I must say that the 5080 does much better. Primarily because it allows me to use the newer technologies. Ray tracing being one of them. If I enabled that with the 2080, my performance tanked because the CPU was doing some of the work. The 5080 has the circuitry to do ray tracing, so it handles it with no performance impact. The 2080 ran at more than 80% utilization most of the time, and the 5080 is running in the 40% range. 

Edited November 11, 2025Nov 11 by MDFlier

6 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

My credit card is spooling up to purchase a new PC, and I am definitely getting one of those AMD X3D CPUs this time.

Why did I hear the sound of spaceship engines whining like they do right before the quantum drives kick in when I read that? 

15 minutes ago, MDFlier said:

Why did I hear the sound of spaceship engines whining like they do right before the quantum drives kick in when I read that? 

I would love to hear that sound when my PC is booting up 

1 hour ago, MDFlier said:

The number one reason that understanding the technical design of the AMD architecture matters to me is that I am able to use that knowledge to make more intelligent part selections when building the system. 

You can give me all of the parts for a 350 Chevy engine in the back of a pickup truck, and in 2 days I'll have you on the road. Fill the bed of that truck with Mazda rotary engine parts, and you'll be walking for months. Sure, they're both engines, but they operate in radically different ways. That's how I feel about Intel vs AMD. 

Well sure, go for it. The car analogy doesn’t quite work, but I get it, it’s your process and the fun part is the process .. I like to go deep into new stuff too. 
 

here’s a good place to start- https://overclock3d.net/reviews/cpu_mainboard/amd-ryzen-9000-deep-dive-what-does-zen-5-deliver/