Intel processor upgrade necessary after DX11 update?

[Rangerjoe03]

First of all- hats off to the developers for the DirectX 11 update! The performance difference in game is night and day for me. I have a AMD FX6350 CPU along with a GeForce 950 GPU. For a long time, the game wasn't playable because of my older, slower CPU and this update is now getting me to buy the expansions!

 

With this setup, I can play the game on ultra at 40-50 FPS for the most part, but I'm now looking to potentially upgrade my GPU for 4k or 1440p. As alternative, I came across a pretty good deal on a whole new PC with an Intel I5 6th gen and Geforce 970 combo.

 

In game, my CPU usage % is now around 20-40% typically, and GPU is almost always at 99% so I know that's where the bottleneck is.

 

I'm just wondering if my AMD processor is still slowing me down and an Intel would be a lot better, or if the $ is better spent just getting a better graphics card for my existing rig. Any thoughts?

Edited May 27, 2017 by Rangerjoe03

[CanadaOne]

I've been watching a ton of youtube videos comparing CPUs, and in some/many ways it seems the CPU is less of a factor than the GPU. There are comparisons between old 2nd generation i5-2400 CPUs and brand new 6th generation i5-6400 CPUs and the difference is often negligible. If I could find an i5-2500 at a decent price I'd run it in a cold second with a GTX 1060 and be very happy with what I had.

 

I like this guy's videos. At 19:00, he shows his conclusions. Pretty interesting. It's only one person's test, but it still has some merit.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpY19J-G0qM

[Retnek]

Same here, I use an I5-2500K up to 4.5 GHz and it's good for IL2-Box - using moderate graphic settings and a rather small screen 1920 x 1080. After the dir-X-11-update and 2.010 I have the feeling IL2-BoX now much more depends on a powerful graphics card. Before that it was CPU-limited in the first place.

[BeastyBaiter]

I recommend swapping the GPU for something less garbage and seeing what the result is. An RX 480/580 or GTX 1060 will offer excellent performance assuming nothing else bottlenecks it. The GTX 970 is also fine, but it isn't a cost effective option at this point unless you get a cheap used one. Both the RX 480/580 and GTX 1060 out perform it while also being cheaper (new).

[Dutch2]

I can confirm the old i5-2500k can handle Bos, but I think the same can count for the Ryzen 1500X quad core in combination with the RX580. I would stay away from old sec.hand systems because the lifetime can be limited.

[CanadaOne]

I've been seeing on youtube videos that the G4560 and the i5-2500 often run neck and neck. Also, I saw some tests where the G4560 was paired with a 1050, 1060, 1070, and 1080. The bottleneck only hit after the 1060. The 1060 was a big jump over the 1050, but the 1070 and 1080 kind of had nowhere to go.

 

It sounds odd to pair a G4560 with a 1060, but it seems to be a sort of sweet spot. That may be the direction I take.

[Rangerjoe03]

Thanks guys! I'm leaning toward the GeForce 1060, hopefully the 6GB version. I'd consider the 1070, but my power supply only has the 6 pin connection.

[CanadaOne]

Thanks guys! I'm leaning toward the GeForce 1060, hopefully the 6GB version. I'd consider the 1070, but my power supply only has the 6 pin connection.

 

A few 1060 videos, just in case you haven't seen them.

 

I like this guy. He certainly has a "folksy" presentation, but he seems to be a solid tech-nerd and scores low on the BS meter.

 

https://youtu.be/gNhvmP8yNE4

https://youtu.be/1lLt_fAu-Cs

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

i9 is going to be the one to beat.. I'm going to upgrade to the i9 as soon as it's out for 3 months.

[CanadaOne]

i9 is going to be the one to beat.. I'm going to upgrade to the i9 as soon as it's out for 3 months.

 

Even if the exchange rate of dollars - Martian to Canadian - is good, the i9 will be out of my snack bracket.

 

How many Phobian Rupees to the Loonie anyway?

[BeastyBaiter]

i9 is going to be the one to beat.. I'm going to upgrade to the i9 as soon as it's out for 3 months.

 

Only if you ignore the upcoming R9 series, also around 2-3 months I think. I suspect the I9 won't be especially good for gaming. It's basically a new incarnation of the I7-6800k and similar models. So we can expect lowish clock speeds with lots of cores just like Intel's been doing with those style chips for years. The I9 seems targeted at bumping off the R7 as the top workstation CPU but from what I've read, it will fall far short of the top level R9's. So for the next year or two, it looks like AMD is going to be the top CPU maker when it comes to multi-threaded performance. None of that is relevant to BoS though, as BoS only uses 4 cores/threads. Well, unless you plan on running 4 instances of BoS on the same computer at once, but who the hell would do that?

 

Back to the original topic, I am running a heavily overclocked RX480 8GB (basically setup as an RX580) and have absolutely no problem running BoS at max detail at 1440p. Minimum FPS is above the 75Hz refresh rate of the monitor. Overall, there doesn't seem to be much of a difference between the RX 480, 580 and GTX 1060. Which one is better varies game to game and even then, the differences aren't that big.

[Gambit21]

i9 is going to be the one to beat.. I'm going to upgrade to the i9 as soon as it's out for 3 months.

 

Recent history has me doubting that statement.

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

i9 is going to be the one to beat.. I'm going to upgrade to the i9 as soon as it's out for 3 months.

Beat your i9 then: http://semiaccurate.com/2017/05/30/intel-announces-x-series-without-details/

This whole article convinced me not to even look at Intel until they actually deliver a new architecture. For now they just keep milking customers. 

 

 

 

Intel is saying in no uncertain terms that their highest end gaming part, the X which stands for Extreme series, can’t have a full bandwidth second GPU attached unless you but a $999 part! If you think the company cares one bit about their gaming customers, this should shatter those illusions. A high-end gamer part that can only support one GPU at full bandwidth? What can I say, this is so sad it isn’t worth mocking.

But just when you think things can’t get dumber we come to the 4-core variants, Kaby lake on Socket 2066. The ‘high’ end 7740X has 4-cores and 8-threads while the lesser 7640X has only 4-threads. Yup they killed HT because, well, there isn’t a good reason other than to jack buyers. They love the enthusiasts, really, they will say so. This is one of those situations your mother taught you about, watch what they do and not what they say.

Back to the point whomever greenlighted this Kaby-X line should be fired. Why? The Socket 2066 platform has 4 channel memory and up to 44 PCIe3 lanes. Kaby-X has two memory channels and 16 PCIe3 lanes. Motherboards support both so if you buy a Socket 2066 board and plug a Kaby-X into it, half your memory slots don’t work. 28/44ths of your PCIe channels are likewise MIA which means at least one slot will be dead, likely more. This is a recipe for returns and a very annoyed channel. Even if Intel sells through OEMs they will still have customers who see empty memory slots and go out and buy an upgrade only to find it doesn’t actually work. Kaby-X is not only a bad product it is a marketing disaster. And it is more expensive than just buying a non-X Kaby part. There is no upside to this turkey.

 

Kabylake-X / Skylake-X is the worst cpu offer in recent years since it offers less potential for more money. 

[Gambit21]

Yeah I was getting pretty stressed about my computer upgrade, as i7 7700k was hardly an upgrade over my i5 2500k...definitely not worth my money.

Yet my i5 rig was getting long in the tooth, and I had to do something.

A 20% increase over the last 5 years? Pathetic, and not a good investment. However I was fixated on Intel, not really considering AMD as I was making assumptions about them...based on nothing really.

Certainly not on any knowledge of current events.

I've had AMD Athlon processors in the past when they were the best thing going, but performance since the Athlon days had me in the habit of ignoring them altogether.

 

Glad you had me look in AMD's direction...best move I could have made.

Now it's Intel that will have to change my preference back again next time around. 

At least my next processor upgrade in a few years will be an AMD...after that we shall see.

[CanadaOne]

 

At least my next processor upgrade in a few years will be an AMD...after that we shall see.

 

I just ordered a new CPU, and though it is the possibly the lowest rung on the Skylake ladder, it's still an upgrade for me. A G4400 dual core at 3.3Ghz.

 

I was farting around on Newegg and Amazon, looking at CPU prices and all of a sudden the G4400 dropped to $60Cdn. (That's about $45 US.) So I grabbed it. Now the price is back to $86Cdn. For $60 it will make a perfect placeholder for my new build, and will let me spend a bit more on a good MB that I can order this week. I'll grab an i5 later this summer, maybe take advantage of a sale.

 

Another week or two and I should have all the pieces for a nice home build.

[Gambit21]

Nice!

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

 

I thought it couldnt get worse, but it just did. To expand and use some features on the motherboards one will have to buy "keys" to unlock mentioned features (like RAID 5). A pinnacle of anti consumer practices. 

[CanadaOne]

I just ordered my Asus B250 motherboard. But I'm pretty sure it's not fancy enough to have any keys to buy.

[Dutch2]

I just ordered my Asus B250 motherboard. But I'm pretty sure it's not fancy enough to have any keys to buy.

Intresting, let us know how this dual core is running at high activities. Best would be to lower every Grahpical adjustment to avoid the Vcard being bottle necking the results.

[CanadaOne]

Intresting, let us know how this dual core is running at high activities. Best would be to lower every Grahpical adjustment to avoid the Vcard being bottle necking the results.

 

I think the lowly G4400 will perform well, albeit in a limited fashion. Based on what my present prehistoric CPU can do, the G4400 should get 6+ planes in the air and hit  40 to 50+ FPS with excellent graphics. A guess, but maybe a good one.

 

For my part I have a hard time lowering the graphics quality. I like the sweet sweet eye candy. I prefer less planes to less visuals. That's just my own way of enjoying flightsims. But I will try things out with lower graphics settings just to see what happens.

[CanadaOne]

Intresting, let us know how this dual core is running at high activities. Best would be to lower every Grahpical adjustment to avoid the Vcard being bottle necking the results.

 

I have my new CPU, MB, and SSD, and I just ordered 8GB of 2400 RAM, a Corsair case, and an EVGA 500W PSU a few hours ago. This is a budget build, no question, but it will be a decent budget build with room to grow.

 

And now we wait for the mail...

[CanadaOne]

Hmmm... now all I have to do is build it without killing myself.

 

[dburne]

Hmmm... now all I have to do is build it without killing myself.

 

 

 

 

 

Best of luck!!

New builds are always exciting!

[CanadaOne]

Thanks.

[BeastyBaiter]

That first hit of the power button is always unnerving...

[CanadaOne]

That first hit of the power button is always unnerving...

 

I'm already nervous and I haven't even put it together yet.

 

It's a holiday here, so I have the day off. I'll do it today or tomorrow when I have a few uninterrupted hours. And I need to borrow a small magnetic screwdriver from a buddy.

[dburne]

You mean you don't have that new puppy running yet? Lol.

 

New builds are so exciting, and yes that first push of the power button gives quite a rush. Especially when you hear that first post beep and go oh yeah baby!

 

Just when everything is together, check and double, and then triple check everything one last time. One little forgotten connection can cause a lot of grief and frustration.

[ShamrockOneFive]

That first hit of the power button is always unnerving...

 

It very much is. I go through a checklist, recheck to make sure everything is seated properly, everything is plugged in... take a deep breath and..... PRESS.

 

I'm already nervous and I haven't even put it together yet.

 

It's a holiday here, so I have the day off. I'll do it today or tomorrow when I have a few uninterrupted hours. And I need to borrow a small magnetic screwdriver from a buddy.

 

Good luck! If you run into trouble just give a shout. Many of us have built our own systems many many times although something unique inevitably comes up each time. Sounds like you have a pretty good build setup. Not that different than what I built a year or so ago except I went high end on the CPU with the i5 6600.

[CanadaOne]

It works!

 

It took a while, and frayed my nerves, and made my wife laugh out loud to see me wearing a headlamp and glasses (which I don't usually wear) while trying to put it all together, but it finally works.

 

I just threw in the SSD with the OS on it from my old rig, and the new one is having a few hiccups dealing with it, so I'll have to do a new windows install. For the moment I can only go online with my tablet. It won't recognize my USB wifi adapter, amongst other small things.

 

But there is a very noticeable difference in performance between my old 2.6 Ghz dual-core from ten years ago and a Skylake 3.3 Ghz dual core. The OS loads in the blink of an eye. Can't wait to throw an i5 in.

[CanadaOne]

Intresting, let us know how this dual core is running at high activities. Best would be to lower every Grahpical adjustment to avoid the Vcard being bottle necking the results.

All done with the build, but for some reason I can't seem to get the proper "wlan" drivers to make the MB recognize my USB wifi stick. I can connect with an Ethernet cable, but not with my wifi adapter.

 

As to your question about performance, I get solid 40 to 50 fps+ with a dozen planes in the air at 1080p and the graphics very high. Not bad for a $60 dual-core CPU and a GTX950.

 

I would imagine that with an i5 and a 1060, this sim must run like the wind.

[BeastyBaiter]

If you moved to windows 10, that's probably the cause. I've noticed wifi sticks don't typically get any driver updates, so the instant you switch to a newer OS, they won't work anymore. Probably have to spend $20-30 on a new one. In any case, good to know BoS will run on the lowest rung of modern-ish hardware. Just goes to show that it is possible to make a serious flight sim that will run on a potato if you code it properly. With your new build, I'm curious as to if it's the CPU or GPU holding your FPS below 60. And yes, it runs wonderfully on the next level up hardware. It runs flawlessly on an I5-4690 (from 3 years ago) and an RX480. As an interesting note, the GTX 770 I had prior to the RX480 gave very poor performance, less than what your 950 seems to give. And of course my current R5 1600x runs it perfectly too, would be strange if it didn't though I have encountered that with some older titles.

[CanadaOne]

If you moved to windows 10, that's probably the cause. I've noticed wifi sticks don't typically get any driver updates, so the instant you switch to a newer OS, they won't work anymore. Probably have to spend $20-30 on a new one. In any case, good to know BoS will run on the lowest rung of modern-ish hardware. Just goes to show that it is possible to make a serious flight sim that will run on a potato if you code it properly. With your new build, I'm curious as to if it's the CPU or GPU holding your FPS below 60. And yes, it runs wonderfully on the next level up hardware. It runs flawlessly on an I5-4690 (from 3 years ago) and an RX480. As an interesting note, the GTX 770 I had prior to the RX480 gave very poor performance, less than what your 950 seems to give. And of course my current R5 1600x runs it perfectly too, would be strange if it didn't though I have encountered that with some older titles.

 

I'm still on Win7, and I got everything else to work, but I'm still having a problem loading drivers to make the MB wlan kick in. I'll keep trying.

 

On the old build with a 2.66Ghz CPU, it was definitely the CPU holding things back. I lowered the graphics and quickly hit a point where I got no increase in FPS. Might try it again with the new CPU just to see. I'll give it a try with the FPS target set beyond 60 and see what I get.

 

Looking forward to a 1060 later in the summer, but not unless the prices come back down from the shortage caused by the bitcoin miners buying up all the GPUs. I'm seeing 30%+ price increases due to the shortage. An EVGA GTX 1060 that was less than $300 not long ago  is now over $400.

[CanadaOne]

And the soap opera of my new build continues. Ordered an i5-6500 today to replace my G4400 and should have it tomorrow. I would have loved it if it was less expensive, but it was in stock, the timing was right, and it should handle what I want to do.

 

Looking forward to some solid FPS when flying. 

 

[BeastyBaiter]

Hmm, the G4400 build was ok since it was so incredibly cheap but if you planned to go with an I5 only 1 month later, why didn't you just wait a month and do an AMD system instead for the same price? The R5 1600 is the same price as that I5 (within $10 US), a B350  mobo the same as well and you would have ended up with a CPU more than 3x as powerful in multi-thread and a little bit better in single thread too. Intel commands the absolute bottom end market thanks to those $60 CPU's like the G4400 but anything beyond that I can't recommend Intel for. The only exception is the I7-7700k due to single thread performance, and even then, it's a little dubious tbh.

 

Regardless, my old I5-4690, which should be about the same performance wise, offered solid performance in BoS prior to replacing it. It struggled in most other games though.

[CanadaOne]

I hear ya, and I can't say you are wrong, but my situation was/is all about the cash, I could only afford to build the rig initially if I got a super cheap CPU, which the G4400 was.(Which runs BOX surprisingly well.)  Even then I was buying one PC piece a week until I had them all. And as I work contract, I'm never sure what amount of extra cash I will have, so getting the i5 could easily have turned out to be another month from now. Had I waited for a Ryzen rig, which admittedly I would have liked, I had no idea when I could have afforded it, and I wanted a new rig sooner than later.

 

And the i5 will handle what I want it to handle. I'm past the days of needing the best and am happy to have what works. I figure I'm lucky to have a new rig with an SSD and an i5 and a stable full of BOX planes. That's enough for me.

 

Also, depending on what tech videos you cite or believe, it seems the difference in CPUs, as far as gaming goes, can turn out to be somewhat incremental. I watched a ton of videos prior to building the new rig and the difference between a $100 and $200 and $300 CPU in the same game can be less than dramatic. I saw some videos that showed an i3 getting 60 FPS in a certain game and an i7 getting 80. Is going from 60 to 80 FPS worth the price difference, maybe it depends on your expectations and what you can afford. But I do know that flight simulators need a solid CPU, and I'm sure an i5-6500 will be good enough.