CPU or GPU upgrade?

[marcost]

Yet another 'new rig' question I'm afraid. I'm thinking of upgrading, but due to cost I'll need to do it in stages. I think I have two options:

 

1)   Put a NV 3090rtx in my existing rig

 

2)  Get a new processor motherboard bundle and use my existing 1080Ti with it. I'm looking at the I9 10900k, which I would overclock (to c5ghz)

 

Current rig: i7 4690k @ 4.6ghz, 24mb ddr3 2133, GTX1080Ti, 1440p g-sync monitor

 

Important: I use DSR and I run IL2 at 5120 x 2880. Find this gives the best image for performance, along with settings in IL2 for AA etc.

 

I'm getting 70-100 fps while flying and lowest 40ish when on the ground. I only fly SP and usually fly campaigns.

 

My gut feel is that I should look at the graphics card as that is limiting fps near the ground, due to testing I have done at lower resolutions (I can get 70 fps on the ground at 1440p). But maybe the current processor is holding back the 1080Ti?

 

I'm not currently interested in VR but may be in future.

 

Which upgrade would you do first?

 

Thanks,

 

M

 

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by marcost

[coconut]

I just upgraded from an i5 4690k at 4.2GHz to a AMD 5800x, keeping my RTX 2080. Immense improvement. I’m running in VR.

[jollyjack]

Tough decision. Sometimes there are upgrade kits at a worthwhile price available, but shop from reliable shops or resources.

In my case i found the case not large enough for a high end GPU.  And then the powersupply was not up to it's demands.

IMO save enough dough, buy all at once, in a setup that supposedly works, and still keep enough money in reserve for the unforeseen. 

 

Doing so you still have your current setup available. The highend GPUs need a lot of power BTW, and a highend (stable) powersupply.

[marcost]

Thanks both, very helpful.

 

I agree on carefully checking case size and power, been caught like that before as well! My current PSU is a good one I think, a Seasonic and I think it's 850w. I'll have to check the power requirements for the new components. I have a music studio so have a power conditioner on incoming electricity supply, to iron out the lumps.

 

I like the idea of waiting and building the full rig. Do you think my choice of GPU and CPU are good? And will make a good combination for Flight Simming? I'm always conscious of CPU bottlenecking when considering a rig for flight sims, because the sims I fly are not optimised for multicore/threading etc etc.

 

Regards,

 

M

[jollyjack]

850 might seem enough, but also with 2 GPUs?

 

The current AMD Ryzen stuff draws attention, but i still have more confidence in i7 stuff,

built 3 PCs with these, and my laptop has one too. Never a problem, but the former AMD equipped laptop burnt out.

Edited January 5, 2021 by jollyjack

[coconut]

I think the intel 10900K has more cores than you need for IL2, and poorer single core efficiency than a 5600x or 5800x. On the plus side it’s available now. I almost went for it but then I saw the 5800x was available, and I’m glad I picked the AMD instead. One word of caution though: I’ve had stability issues with my SSDs with the new proc or motherboard. Seems stable now, but I’m not sure what fixed it. 

The 3090 I find too expensive, but if it’s ok for you I guess it can’t be wrong. AMDs GPUs apparently are worse than NVidia’s at the resolution you want to run. 

Edited January 5, 2021 by coconut

[marcost]

Agree on the PSU, looks like the 3090 can pull over 400w and with an o/c 10900k that sounds risky.

 

Must admit I've stuck with intel through many builds as well. Especially for music applications where there have been difficulties with non-intel.

[cardboard_killer]

56 minutes ago, marcost said:

Do you think my choice of GPU and CPU are good? And will make a good combination for Flight Simming?

 

I think so. I currently have the Ryzen 7 and have no complaints, but I think the intel route is fine and you picked about their best. I prefer building everything from scratch, but my current rig I cannibalized my old RX580OC and have been satisfied [I was going to upgrade to a 2080, but prices remain too high so I'm biding my time]. So, of the two choices I'd go for the MB+I9 and cannibalize your 1080 over spending the insane money on an RTX 3080. You'll get more bang for your buck that way IMO.

[Georgio]

Tbh I'd spend the money on a VR setup now; either a Rift S or ideally Reverb G2 and wonder why you didn't do it earlier.

I have an i7 8700k  / 1080ti /SSD setup and get stellar performance in VR with the G2...?

[marcost]

56 minutes ago, cardboard_killer said:

 

I think so. I currently have the Ryzen 7 and have no complaints, but I think the intel route is fine and you picked about their best. I prefer building everything from scratch, but my current rig I cannibalized my old RX580OC and have been satisfied [I was going to upgrade to a 2080, but prices remain too high so I'm biding my time]. So, of the two choices I'd go for the MB+I9 and cannibalize your 1080 over spending the insane money on an RTX 3080. You'll get more bang for your buck that way IMO.

Thanks @ cardboard_killer that's really helpful. I use this pc for audio editing as well, so a high-performing multi core chip wouldn't be wasted.

 

51 minutes ago, Georgio said:

Tbh I'd spend the money on a VR setup now; either a Rift S or ideally Reverb G2 and wonder why you didn't do it earlier.

I have an i7 8700k  / 1080ti /SSD setup and get stellar performance in VR with the G2...?

Thanks Georgio, my reluctance is that I still enjoy CloD and old 1946 very much and VR is a 'can never go back to 2d' kind of thing, judging by many user comments.

Edited January 5, 2021 by marcost

[Voyager]

You may want to wait to see what happens with Rocket Lake. It's supposed to launch in March, and should be very competitive with the Zen 3 CPUs, and could end up being cheaper/easier to set up.

 

From what I'm hearing, we're probably looking at an 8 core CPU that's about 5% faster than the Zen 3 CPU's for around $450, though it will be your personal space heater. 

 

Right now I'm running VR on a 3800X with 1080 Ti, and I'm CPU bound in my rig. The 3800X does about as well as a 4790k, so you're likely CPU limited as well. On my 4770K I was barely stressing my 1080 Ti. 

[marcost]

2 hours ago, Voyager said:

Right now I'm running VR on a 3800X with 1080 Ti, and I'm CPU bound in my rig. The 3800X does about as well as a 4790k, so you're likely CPU limited as well. On my 4770K I was barely stressing my 1080 Ti. 

Very interesting comparison, thanks for the reply Voyager. Waiting might be a good call

[Bernard_IV]

Get a 3080 for cheaper and your CPU upgrade.  The 3090 performs 10% faster than the 3080 for double the price.  If you can even get one, sounds like the bitcoin miners are buying them now.

[marcost]

Thanks Bernard, hadn't considered that - good call!

 

Regards,

 

M

[Sokol1]

17 hours ago, marcost said:

1)   Put a NV 3090rtx in my existing rig

 

RTX 3090 has bad cost/benefit for games, only 6 FPS more in MSFS 2020 over RTX 3080 (see at 2:15), and overall 10% in other games.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UecujMBJW7Y

 

RTX3090 market is not really games, but professional applications, as a more cheap alternative for Geforce Titan RTX.

[marcost]

Thanks for the info & link Sokol,

 

From my (limited at this stage) research, I had understood that the 3090 was effectively the 1080ti of the 3xxx range. Clearly there is more to it.

 

Best regards,

 

M

[Georgio]

20 hours ago, marcost said:

Thanks Georgio, my reluctance is that I still enjoy CloD and old 1946 very much and VR is a 'can never go back to 2d' kind of thing, judging by many user comments.

 

Unfortunately it is a bit of a one way door and once down the rabbit hole there is no return.

 

I used TrackIR for 20 years prior to getting a VR setup 5 years ago.

I was perfectly happy with the TIR setup with a large monitor but once I tried VR and IL-2 in particular it was obvious there was no going back.

Last year while I was inbetween headsets with the Rift S sold and waiting for the Reverb G2 to turn up I fired up my TIR 5 again and even with a 34" curved Predator monitor the experience was awful and I lasted 5 minutes before turning it off.

 

What I don't understand in CloD is that it would be perfect for VR so why it seems to be such a low priority is a mystery.

I've owned it from beta and loved the Team Fusion updates but I don't use it simply because of the lack of VR.

I would buy the North African expansion but again until it has VR I'm simply not interested and I'm sure I'm not alone.

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Georgio

[chiliwili69]

I will definetely will go to a Zen3 chips if you want a PC for IL-2 (monitor or VR, it doesn´t matter).

 

Look at the SYN_Vander tests we did here. Look column X.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gJmnz_nVxI6_dG_UYNCCpZVK2-f8NBy-y1gia77Hu_k

 

I went from a 4790K to a 5600X and I am very pleased with the CPU performance. The CPU is not the bottleneck anymore. Check this post.

 

Regarding GPU, I would upgrade first CPU (and RAM) and then decide what to do on GPU. The 3080Ti should appear in a month or two.

[dburne]

45 minutes ago, Georgio said:

 

Unfortunately it is a bit of a one way door and once down the rabbit hole there is no return.

 

I used TrackIR for 20 years prior to getting a VR setup 5 years ago.

I was perfectly happy with the TIR setup with a large monitor but once I tried VR and IL-2 in particular it was obvious there was no going back.

Last year while I was inbetween headsets with the Rift S sold and waiting for the Reverb G2 to turn up I fired up my TIR 5 again and even with a 34" curved Predator monitor the experience was awful and I lasted 5 minutes before turning it off.

 

What I don't understand in CloD is that it would be perfect for VR so why it seems to be such a low priority is a mystery.

I've owned it from beta and loved the Team Fusion updates but I don't use it simply because of the lack of VR.

I would buy the North African expansion but again until it has VR I'm simply not interested and I'm sure I'm not alone.

 

 

Yep same here, it is not even installed on my system any longer.

[sevenless]

On 1/5/2021 at 1:00 PM, marcost said:

2)  Get a new processor motherboard bundle and use my existing 1080Ti with it. I'm looking at the I9 10900k, which I would overclock (to c5ghz)

 

Current rig: i7 4690k @ 4.6ghz, 24mb ddr3 2133, GTX1080Ti, 1440p g-sync monitor

 

Yes do upgrade your CPU/Mobo/RAM first. But don´t waste any money on an i9-10900K chip.

 

Here are my CPU-Z Bench results with my i9-9900K@5.000Ghz (32gigs RAM@3.800Ghz). The i9-CPU also runs with 5.200Ghz, but that is usually not necessary.

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by sevenless

[NiiranenVR]

Yes , i have reading a Lot in here , and I have a i5 9600k 6 core that runaround the 5.2 allso 
And as I understand there file be no benefit for me to go for a ' better' CPU as long as il2 is running on one core 

[grcurmudgeon]

#2, since you'll be lucky to find a graphics card upgrade in stock unless you want to pay the scalpers, and please don't feed the scalpers. Save up for the graphics card and buy it once the stock situation fixes itself.

[chiliwili69]

Just single-thread from CPU-Z for a basic Zen 3 5600X out-of-box (no OC).

 

[LuftManu]

I am definetly enjoying a different, better experience since I upgraded to a 5600X too. Lots of planes in career, smooth as silk, no slowdowns... CPU is the most important thing for a good simulation. (Running stock too and also with a 1080 at 1080p).

[Sokol1]

23 hours ago, Voyager said:

You may want to wait to see what happens with Rocket Lake.

 

Yes, if want keep with Intel, at least await the new generation.

 

[Jaws2002]

On 1/5/2021 at 10:19 AM, Voyager said:

Right now I'm running VR on a 3800X with 1080 Ti, and I'm CPU bound in my rig. The 3800X does about as well as a 4790k, so you're likely CPU limited as well. On my 4770K I was barely stressing my 1080 Ti. 

 

 

I'm not too sure about that. He wants to play at 1440P. I run at 1440P, with a 3950x and in most cases i'm GPU bound. FS2020 is the same. I'm limited by main thread only at very low altitude, over a very big city, all other cases I'm limited by the overclocked 1080Ti.

1 hour ago, Sokol1 said:

 

Yes, if want keep with Intel, at least await the new generation.

 

 

 

Rocket lake is not new generation.

It's just the same thing with more power thrown at it and PCIE gen 4.  Intel didn't even bother to make a CPU with more than eight cores for Rocket Lake, because of the excessive power requirements. 

Edited January 6, 2021 by Jaws2002

[Voyager]

1 hour ago, Jaws2002 said:

[...]

 

Rocket lake is not new generation.

It's just the same thing with more power thrown at it and PCIE gen 4.  Intel didn't even bother to make a CPU with more than eight cores for Rocket Lake, because of the excessive power requirements. 

 

I'm going to have to disagree with that strongly. Rocket Lake is a backport of their Sunny Cove architecture from the 10nm process to the 14nm node. It is an entirely new and separate architecture from the Sky Lake architecture that has powered everything since their 6000 series. 

 

Basically, Rocket Lake is using the same architecture that Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, and the upcoming Alder Lake use, just on a bigger node. That's part of the reason they couldn't fit more than 8 cores on the die; it was sized around a 10nm process, so there's just to much stuff for it to fit. 

[Jaws2002]

22 minutes ago, Voyager said:

Rocket Lake is a backport of their Sunny Cove architecture from the 10nm process to the 14nm node.

 

 

That's exactly the problem.

 

[marcost]

Thanks for all the replies. I have looked at the 5600x and it says max boost 4.6ghz. I run my 4790K at 4.6ghz so can someone explain why this would be an upgrade (specifically for IL2 where number of cores doesn't help)? Presumably other architecture differences - cache etc? Looking at the the benchmarks you have posted this must be so (very useful, thank you all!).

 

How are the benchmarks comparable if chips have different base and boost clocks? Which is used?

 

Or is it actually the ram and bus speeds on a newer mobo that would free things up?

 

I know the 9900k and ks are popular, definitely an option. But is it end-of-life? I want to buy a bundle with a guaranteed o/c, can't see many for sale in the UK.

 

Do I ask a lot of questions? ?

 

Thanks again

 

M

[chiliwili69]

1 hour ago, marcost said:

Presumably other architecture differences - cache etc?

 

Right. The IPC of the Zen3 is higher than intel line. So not all depend on just CPU frenquency.

1 hour ago, marcost said:

How are the benchmarks comparable

 

Do you refer to CPU-Z, or PAssmark or SYN_Vander?

1 hour ago, marcost said:

Or is it actually the ram

 

If fact the RAM speed of the Zen3 CPUs is lower than the Intel line.

[marcost]

52 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

Do you refer to CPU-Z, or PAssmark or SYN_Vander?

Hi chiliwili

 

Thanks for the reply. I was referring to the CPU-z validator screenshots above

[chiliwili69]

11 hours ago, marcost said:

I was referring to the CPU-z validator screenshots above

 

In that case, CPU-Z collect all the test done for a particular CPU and make an average. Regardeless of the frequency. So they merge all test per CPU.

 

It is the same in the Passmark benchmark and in the Userbenchmark. They merge everything regardeless of the CPU frequency. The problem is that in many cases (Intel CPUs and AMD CPUs), the frequency is not mantained constant during the test, so it is also dificult to determine the frequency during the run of the test.

 

That´s why, if you are interested in IL-2, it is more trustable to look at the results of the SYN_Vander benchmark since you can see the CPU freq, RAM speeds and other details.

 

 

[marcost]

Got it, thanks very much!

[marcost]

Thanks for preparing the test and for compiling the results Chiliwili, I took the time to do it and I'm pretty much at the bottom of the list - FPS Avg: 73.800 - Min: 59 - Max: 101

 

I can also now see why the AMD chip is so recommended

 

Thanks again

 

Martin

[marcost]

Thanks to everyone who replied on this thread, you certainly opened my eyes to some important things that I hadn't considered. The SYN_Vander benchmark test and spreadsheet was especially useful. Out of interest, I've pretty much decided on the following spec:

 

Case:          Phanteks EVOLV X midi RGB      
Mobo:        Asus ROG STRIX X570-E GAMING
CPU:           Ryzen 5900x   
RAM:          G.Skill Trident Z Neo 2x16GB 3600MHz CL16-16-16-36  F4-3600C16D-32GTZN
PSU:           850w Gold or platinum
Cooler:       Arctic liquid freezer II 360
GPU:           Asus ROG Strix GTX3080

 

I've gone Asus because I'm familiar with the BIOS system. Now I only need some of these components to be in stock and I can get building!

 

Thanks again

 

M

 

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by marcost

[coconut]

I have the arctic freezer II 240 and the same motherboard. The two are not compatible. The lower mounting bracket of the cooler overlaps with the m2 heat radiator on the motherboard. There’s also some condensators on the motherboard that are close to the cpu socket and are covered by the upper bracket. They barely fit, likely pinched by the bracket. Cooling performance is disappointing, 80+ degrees under load 

[Boomerang]

If not needing as many cores and are aiming at good single core performance for the pri$e, a 3300X is great value. 3600 and 3600X are very good all rounders from what I've used to date. The newer 5600X looks like a nice sweet spot as well for a mid ranged build.

One PC I'm using is an: ROG Strix X570-I with Patriot PVS416G440C9K ram, 3600X AMD CPU, Noctua cooler, 3060ti GPU, (mid range build), a gold rated 850 Seasonic PS. All works great!

I tested a B450 system running an 1660 super, 3300X CPU,  3200 ram listed from the QVL , and that ran fine as well.

Storage used are 4th and 3rd Gen to suit each system built, as with the GPU's.

Good luck with your build, wishing it all goes swell. BIOS updates are a good thing for compatibility.

ASUS have been known to leave customers with BETA BIOS, from what Iv'e witnessed over the years, something to be mindful of.

Some folks like the H2o cooling, I much prefer Air, it's a personal preference if happy with temps within an independent environment. I really don't need to push the systems I use in order to get the job done. This relates to what purpose the individual uses their machines for.

   

[Voyager]

@Boomerang The Zen 2 chips are at a noticable disadvantage vs the Zen 3 chips. I saw something like a 20% performance difference between a 3800X and a 5800X with no other changes in my system. 

 

This game seems to be very memory latency sensitive, and that was one of the weak spots of the Zen 2 chips, when compared to Intel. 

 

Also, be cautious about the TridentZ Neo -32GTZN memory sticks. I found out, through buying a kit, that G.Skill had changed them from Samsung B-die to Hynix C dies without actually telling anyone. It ended up being pretty similar to the Ripjaws V kit that was half the price. 

 

If you can get a RipjawsV 16-16-16-32 for less than the TridentZ Neo, you might as well get that instead. 

[marcost]

@coconut thanks so much for that, I never would have known until it was too late. I'll have to research compatible coolers

Edited January 15, 2021 by marcost

[coconut]

For ref I have rev 3 of the cooler. I imagine they’ll fix the lower bracket in a revision. It’s stupid to have that problem.

regarding cooling perf, maybe it’s better than I thought. ASUS own tool said 63deg under load, open hardware monitor said 80. But maybe OHM is wrong. 

 

EDIT

According to https://linustechtips.com/topic/1279961-caution-arctic-cooling-liquid-freezer-ii-not-compatible-with-asus-x570-e-gaming/page/2/ they are compatible. I’ll have to look again at the instructions and my installation 

Edited January 15, 2021 by coconut