Worth upgrading? CPU or GPU?

[6./ZG26_Emil]

I'm wondering if there is much I can do to give a significant boost to IL2.

 

First off my rig

 

i5 4570K @ 4.2 GHz (Watercooled)

16 Gig Kingston HyperX 

ASRock Z87 Pro

2X Samsung 840 Evo

2X 780GTX SLI (Stock speeds)

Monitor 2560x1600 (Play IL2 in 2560x1440p)

 

The two obvious things are either CPU or GPU but....Am I likely to get a good performance boost from an upgrade to either. I can only imagine I would have to go for a single 980Ti or even Titan to get a significant performance boost to the GPU side of things and that's going to be expensive.

 

The other idea would be to upgrade the CPU but the Skylake 6700K apparently only overclocks to 4.6 or if you are lucky 4.8 GHz which doesn't sound like a huge boost over my i5 @ 4.2 GHz. Having said that I imagine IL2 likes more CPU cycles.

 

What do you all think?

[SCG_Space_Ghost]

I'd say push your OC higher, bud.

 

I'm running 4.5GHz on an i5-2500K and it handles BOS very, very well.

[DD_Arthur]

I don't think there's anything on the market yet that will give you a "significant" performance boost over what you have now.  Not even twin 980's!

 

Since you're water-cooled a higher over-clock would seem the first thing to try. 

[LLv24_Zami]

I´d say CPU is far more important in BoS. I just upgraded from 4670k to 6700k and in clock to clock comparison Skylake is something like 10-15% faster in BoS. I have clocked my 6700k to 4.6Ghz atm, I could probably get 4.8Ghz but that is as far as it goes. My 4670k was at 4.2Ghz, so I got boost in BoS. But it is not anything ground braking. Heinkels is another story though   

 

My GTX970 died couple days ago and I was forced to replace it with 660ti. Overall difference between 970 and 660 in BoS is not so much. BoS is still very much playable with Ultra settings. So CPU power is the main thing in BoS.

[Dakpilot]

Yep have to agree CPU affects minimum FPS and GPU just allows more AA and supersampling settings for better image quality and higher resolutions

 

however a 15% increase of say 45 fps minimum is not a game changer....

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[6./ZG26_Emil]

Yep seems like there is no way to gain much performance without throwing bucket loads of money at it. I do personally think a 10-15% on FPS is worth an upgrade but not at any expense.....I wont be happy till I am locked at 60fps in all situations but I guess I'll be waiting a few years before that happens :D

 

I guess I'll wait till next year to see what the new cards are like and hopefully the Skylakes will come down in price and they release something that can be overclocked to 5GHz.

 

Any thoughts on a thirds 780GTX? Is there much to be gained from 'three way'. They worked flawlessly in SLI, I was expecting all kinds of issues!

[[DBS]TH0R]

The only real performance benefit you can do is make sure that you are on latest firmwire on that 840 Evo drives. Their performance drops to 1/10 of declared speed for files older than 8 weeks. I have the same one in my rig and this comes from first hand experience. Hoping this latest firmwire fixed that.

 

As for the rest, you are looking into dropping serious amount of cash for a minor improvement if you go to 980 and Skylake combo. Perhaps a 980Ti would yield better performance (and eliminate any micro stuttering you might have due to two SLI cards) but thats up to you.

 

OC that CPU if you can a bit more.

[TP_Jacko]

In the past I found incremental upgrades don't give the big boost only throwing money at it for a future proofed rig works. But your specs blow mine away so what are you unhappy about

[6./ZG26_Emil]

I tried overclocking to 4.4 a while back but it would crash occasionally even with the voltage bumped up which is why I settled for 4.2 as it never crashed. My RAM is also overclocked heavily so if I start messing with the CPU clock aren't I going to have to set that back to stock speeds initially?

[dburne]

I would think you could get that cpu higher with it being water cooled, I am running my 4820K at 4.50 ghz all day every day, never have a hiccup with it. Have had it running 4.6 ghz but it would occasionally hiccup so I settled for 4.50 ghz....

Not much available in today's tech to give you much more cpu horsepower, at least yet.

 

Not sure what you mean by you have your ram overclocked, is it 1600 MHz ram and is that what you are running? Lower timings can give better results at the stock specified speed than higher speed with looser timings...

 

As others have mentioned, you are really not going to gain that much by a hardware upgrade at this time, you would have more to gain by getting a little more out of that cpu you currently have really... I think you may have a little headroom there with a little effort.

 

You might have a read here:

http://www.overclockers.com/3step-guide-to-overclock-intel-haswell/

Edited September 28, 2015 by dburne

[6./ZG26_Emil]

its 1600 MHz running at 1800 MHz iirc and the timings are 10-10-10....it's ages ago that I did that and can't remember. 

 

I can have another pop at getting 4.4 or 4.5 but I spent ages on it when I built the system and while it would run ok most of the time I got the odd crash here and there so dialed it back a little and it's been totally stable since, maybe I was unlucky with the chip?

[dburne]

 Take the ram out of the equation, go back to 1600 MHz at default timings. Your motherboard " should" have an option to select the best value for your timings at the default 1600 MHz speed, if not look up the timings for your ram at that speed and enter them manually. Usually it is only like the first 4-5 values that you want to insure are correct for your speed.

You will gain much more increasing your cpu horsepower than you ever would increasing that ram speed.

 

Have a look at the link I posted, you really should be able to get to around 4.4 ghz at default cpu voltage without too much effort, especially as you are not hyperthreading with that cpu. You could probably get it to around 4.5 with a little vcore adjustment as well, just keep an eye on your core temps under load. With the K processor your multiplier is unlocked, so all you really should need to mess with is the multiplier and possible vcore voltage.

Edited September 28, 2015 by dburne

[IRRE_Golgoth21]

Stay like that, it's useless to spend some money with such a powerful set. 780GTX are as powerful as a 960.

 

And your CPU is overclockable.

[LLv44_Mprhead]

I don't see you getting any significant boost on performance, unless you go really all out. Different cpu-generations overclock in different way, good thing about skylake is that it can be oc:d higher than ivy bridge or haswell. Still, quick calculation tells that even with oc, you won't get more than maybe 10 % - 15 % performance increase. It's really hard to see that justifying the cost of new cpu, mobo and memory.

[Dutchvdm]

Hi guys,

 

In getting a new rig in a couple of weeks, but been out of the "scene" for a while. Reading in all the new stuff is fun and all but there are still a couple thing that puzzle me. Currently i'm running this:

 

- I7-2600 (3,4)

- 8 GB DDR2(?)

- ATI AMD Radeon HD 7850 (2GB version)

- Asus P8 Z68 (Mobo)

- SSD 120 (forgot which make)

 

Although i must say this still runs games like GTA5 quiet well, i really want to buy something new. For Il2 it's just a little to slow i guess. Therefore i did some research en made the following list for my new rig.

 

- Intel I7 or I5 (I guess for Il2 the I7 will be better, but i still don't get Intell's complex numbering system. Somebody wan't to give me some advise   

- Asus Z170 pro gaming

- Corsair 16 GB DDR 3 1600 Mhz (or is DDR4 a must?)

- MSI Geforce GTX 970 4GB (I'm a sucker for ATI, but after more then a decade of driver issues i'm going to Nvidia)

- Samsung Evo 850 500 GB

- More stuff like HDD, but i guess that's not really noteworthy.  

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thnx!

 

Grt M

Edited October 2, 2015 by martijnvdm

[LLv24_Zami]

I don't see you getting any significant boost on performance, unless you go really all out. Different cpu-generations overclock in different way, good thing about skylake is that it can be oc:d higher than ivy bridge or haswell. Still, quick calculation tells that even with oc, you won't get more than maybe 10 % - 15 % performance increase. It's really hard to see that justifying the cost of new cpu, mobo and memory.

 

It benefits more than that according my experience. After further testing the difference in BoS between 4670k @4.2GHz vs 6700k @4.2GHz is 15% pretty accurately. I got easily better overclock with Skylake, I am now at 4.6GHZ and that is 21-22% better performance in BoS. I could get more oc out of this chip, I`d say the reasonable limit is 4.8GHz. Not always 60fps at least with He-111s on ground but it is noticeable. And the lowest fps is what matters and there that extra CPU power counts.

 

Is it worth the price, well that is up to you. I am happy for every fps I can get.

 

In overall more you get GHz out of your it counts in BoS

 

Hi guys,

 

In getting a new rig in a couple of weeks, but been out of the "scene" for a while. Reading in all the new stuff is fun and all but there are still a couple thing that puzzle me. Currently i'm running this:

 

- I7-2600 (3,4)

- 8 GB DDR2(?)

- ATI AMD Radeon HD 7850 (2GB version)

- Asus P8 Z68 (Mobo)

- SSD 120 (forgot which make)

 

Although i must say this still runs games like GTA5 quiet well, i really want to buy something new. For Il2 it's just a little to slow i guess. Therefore i did some research en made the following list for my new rig.

 

- Intel I7 or I5 (I guess for Il2 the I7 will be better, but i still don't get Intell's complex numbering system. Somebody wan't to give me some advise   

- Asus Z170 pro gaming

- Corsair 16 GB DDR 3 1600 Mhz (or is DDR4 a must?)

- MSI Geforce GTX 970 4GB (I'm a sucker for ATI, but after more then a decade of driver issues i'm going to Nvidia)

- Samsung Evo 850 500 GB

- More stuff like HDD, but i guess that's not really noteworthy.  

 

Any thoughts?

 

Thnx!

 

Grt M

 

Good setup with the new rig. I got more or less the same. Compared to your old one, I think you will see noticeable boost in BoS in low fps situations. I7 is better, you are right. Most obvious difference is the base clock frequency and the oc capability which is better with 6700k than 6600k. That is why I got 6700k even though it is more expensive. Other than that performance difference with same clocks is not very remarkable to my understanding.

 

You have to get DDR4 for that motherboard.

[6./ZG26_Emil]

You wont get any real improvement with an i7 over an i5.

 

The reason I made this thread is because I record gameplay with software that is heavy on CPU and was looking for a boost.

 

My game worked perfectly with the system in the OP.

 

A Haswell/Devils Canyon i5 will be great and are easily overclockable and the 970GTX is a great card. DDR4 is no use unless you go with Skylake AFAIK. The Evos are great SSDs I ahve two 250s so I have the OS on one and the game on another.

 

You didn't mention what monitor you will use, if you are gaming on 1080p that system will run BOS at full settings with ease....go up to 1440p and 1600p and it gets more resourse hungry but I imagine the 970 will still handle it without any problems.

p.s I upgraded my pair of 780GTXs to a single water cooled 980Ti. It now means I can record 60fps at 1440p with Shadow play which it wouldn't allow with even two 780GTXs. I'll sell the 780s for 200 quid each so the upgrade wasn't that expensive and I might SLI after Pascal comes out. the 980Ti gives a definite improvement with lots of planes on the ground but it's no gigantic, what is nice is how quiet this new card is, you can barely tell my PC is on anymore :D

[Dutchvdm]

It benefits more than that according my experience. After further testing the difference in BoS between 4670k @4.2GHz vs 6700k @4.2GHz is 15% pretty accurately. I got easily better overclock with Skylake, I am now at 4.6GHZ and that is 21-22% better performance in BoS. I could get more oc out of this chip, I`d say the reasonable limit is 4.8GHz. Not always 60fps at least with He-111s on ground but it is noticeable. And the lowest fps is what matters and there that extra CPU power counts.

 

Is it worth the price, well that is up to you. I am happy for every fps I can get.

 

In overall more you get GHz out of your it counts in BoS

 

 

Good setup with the new rig. I got more or less the same. Compared to your old one, I think you will see noticeable boost in BoS in low fps situations. I7 is better, you are right. Most obvious difference is the base clock frequency and the oc capability which is better with 6700k than 6600k. That is why I got 6700k even though it is more expensive. Other than that performance difference with same clocks is not very remarkable to my understanding.

 

You have to get DDR4 for that motherboard.

 

Thnx for the info! The price difference between an 6600 and a 6700 isn't that big. it's about 100+ euro's. That's acceptable. it's not like GPU's where a price gap of 200+ will give you 20% extra performance (GTX 970 vs 980). I will have to think about. 

 

Good to know about the DDR4!

 

Grt Martijn

You wont get any real improvement with an i7 over an i5.

 

The reason I made this thread is because I record gameplay with software that is heavy on CPU and was looking for a boost.

 

My game worked perfectly with the system in the OP.

 

A Haswell/Devils Canyon i5 will be great and are easily overclockable and the 970GTX is a great card. DDR4 is no use unless you go with Skylake AFAIK. The Evos are great SSDs I ahve two 250s so I have the OS on one and the game on another.

 

You didn't mention what monitor you will use, if you are gaming on 1080p that system will run BOS at full settings with ease....go up to 1440p and 1600p and it gets more resourse hungry but I imagine the 970 will still handle it without any problems.

p.s I upgraded my pair of 780GTXs to a single water cooled 980Ti. It now means I can record 60fps at 1440p with Shadow play which it wouldn't allow with even two 780GTXs. I'll sell the 780s for 200 quid each so the upgrade wasn't that expensive and I might SLI after Pascal comes out. the 980Ti gives a definite improvement with lots of planes on the ground but it's no gigantic, what is nice is how quiet this new card is, you can barely tell my PC is on anymore :D

 

Prices of the SSD500 are really acceptable. My current 120 GB SSD is nice for Windows and maybe 1 game, but that's it. With 500 GB this will be different. 

 

Currently i'm still using an old Samsung 19" monitor. But i will replace that as well. 21,5 inch will be fine. 27 for is to big.

 

Grt M

Edited October 2, 2015 by martijnvdm

[Dutchvdm]

Hi Guys,

 

I've got everything figured out except for the cpu... Money isn't really an issue so i think it should be an I7, but i really don't know the difference between all the versions. Skylake delivery's seem to be a problem here, so i got two offers (I7 4790K and 4820K). Or should i wait?

 

Grt Martijn

[Dakpilot]

Probably the wait for Skylake availability would be the better option, during the wait you could research the option of X99 platform/5820K or the 5930K if money is not an issue, there are some benefits to going that route

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Urra]

Hi Guys,

 

I've got everything figured out except for the cpu... Money isn't really an issue so i think it should be an I7, but i really don't know the difference between all the versions. Skylake delivery's seem to be a problem here, so i got two offers (I7 4790K and 4820K). Or should i wait?

 

Grt Martijn

Happy with my 4790K at 5ghz, Bos will thank you for it, I also figured out that using two graphics cards actually kills some frames per second for me, so I disable SLI before I turn on the program.

[-=PHX=-Satch]

I have an 4790K (stock) + Nvidia 970 and i get constant 60fps all the time in ULTRA!

[Dutchvdm]

Thnx Guys,

 

I made up my mind en went for the 4790K. I will probally run it at 4,4 Ghz. 

 

 

I have an 4790K (stock) + Nvidia 970 and i get constant 60fps all the time in ULTRA!

 

That sounds really promising. Good to hear.

 

Grt Martijn

[marklar]

I have an 4790K (stock) + Nvidia 970 and i get constant 60fps all the time in ULTRA!

 

Do you play the campaign or offline missions at all? I cannot get more than 40fps when I have 4+ AI on screen. 

 

my rig: i5 2500k@4.2GHz + GTX 770. 

[BazzaLB]

Just as an experiment, I disabled my SLI and found my lowest frame rates slightly improved. I don't think SLI is of any benefit in BoS tbh.

[Dakpilot]

Bos is very dependant on CPU for physics calculations, and even modern CPU's can be taxed, it can also be very demanding on GPU when settings are high

 

Is it also true that when using SLi there is also an increased draw on CPU to now feed large amount of data to  a pair of GRX cards?

 

On other games which are both heavy on CPU and GPU a similar situation has been experienced, CPU is heavily used and when another GPU is added the total load is now enough to give little or degraded performance

 

I only ask (not an expert on SLi) because other people in other games have had a similar problem, some only getting the benefits of good SLi performance when upgrading to X99 or similar MB combo

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[KoN_]

Emil you dont need to change any thing you have a very good system , new maps new plane sets ,game just  needs another patch , still not optimized .

[SharpeXB]

Something to consider with new graphics cards is that the next Nvidia series "Pascal" is due about the middle of next year. They'll feature 16-32GB of VRAM and something like double the transistors that are in a Titan X. Boom!

[Dakpilot]

Something to consider with new graphics cards is that the next Nvidia series "Pascal" is due about the middle of next year. They'll feature 16-32GB of VRAM and something like double the transistors that are in a Titan X. Boom!

 

The latest Nvidia Drivers now include support for Pascal, which suggests from previous new series releases, that it is quite far along the development stage, and from past history indicates mass production 2016Q1 and summer release, as a realistic firm assumption

 

hope there are some leaked/early performance benchmarks soon

 

Cheers Dakpilot