Is it worth upgrading my cpu and ram

[Tonester]

Hi all…currently i run Intel i7 9700KF  Processor 3.60 GHz - ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX Motherboard - Win 10 Pro 64 bit - 32Gb G.Skill Sniper X 3600MHz DDR4 Ram. Upgrading mobo to newer isnt really affordable for me currently…should i upgrade my cpu to i9 9900kf? will i see any improvement…i run a reverb vr on a 2080 super gpu. Would upping my ram to 64gb or higher do any good as well? any advice appreciated guys

[TheSNAFU]

I have the 9700k and I doubt the 9900k would give you much of a bump. New, that cpu is between $400-600 making it more costly than one of the new generation processors. You didn’t mention but have you overclocked the 9700?  It’s a good overclocker and that would give you much increased performance. I have mine easily clocked to 5.1 ghz with a good air cooling. I have the g2 headset and run il2 at mostly high settings but reduced resolution 70%. 

[1Sascha]

It all depends on price, I think. I'm guessing the gains wouldn't be sensational, but that i9 should definitely be an upgrade.

 

 

But... even a mid tier 12th gen CPU will be superior to that 9900 - but paired with a cheaper Z690 mainboard, you'd be looking at a little over $400 for those two (assuming you're in the US).

 

Going to have to post another Passmark comparison here.. ?

 

Going by "buy it now" prices on ebay.com, that 9900 doesn't appear to be cheap (found a few for around $350) - so I'm not sure if I wouldn't rather wait, save a bit more and then make the switch to 12th or 13th gen.

 

If you can get a used 9900 for a sweet deal (like $100 or so), then, why not? But if you have to buy "new old stock" for the price that I found on ebay, I'd rather save up another 100 bucks and go socket 1700.

 

 

 

S.

Edited February 20, 2023 by 1Sascha

[dburne]

5 hours ago, Tonester said:

Hi all…currently i run Intel i7 9700KF  Processor 3.60 GHz - ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming 4 ATX Motherboard - Win 10 Pro 64 bit - 32Gb G.Skill Sniper X 3600MHz DDR4 Ram. Upgrading mobo to newer isnt really affordable for me currently…should i upgrade my cpu to i9 9900kf? will i see any improvement…i run a reverb vr on a 2080 super gpu. Would upping my ram to 64gb or higher do any good as well? any advice appreciated guys

 

You would gain more if holding on to your current mobo with a newer GPU.

I would not replace that processor until you do a newer mb upgrage.

[jollyjack]

Good advice, i did an MB upgrade, went for a z790 DDR5 to be prepared, but the z790 chip-set still appeared buggy regarding XMP.

Sent 3 motherboard brands back, courtesy of amazon .... all that work, pffff.

 

Ended up with an MSI EDGE z790 DDR5 Wifi, but haven't tested XMP yet. runs stable now.

 

[1Sascha]

17 hours ago, jollyjack said:

but the z790 chip-set still appeared buggy regarding XMP.

IIRC there's no real need at this point to go Z790 - especially these days when mobo-prices have also gone quite a bit off the rails.

Might as well buy Z690 which would be a little cheaper and the only real downside is that you may have to flash the BIOS to make it 13th gen compatible. I can't confirm it from own experience, but AFAIK my MSI Z690 Tomahawk DDR4 is 13th gen ready for example. All it would need is a BIOS-update.

 

17 hours ago, dburne said:

You would gain more if holding on to your current mobo with a newer GPU.

 

Given his statement about a mobo-upgrade not really being an option, I'm not sure a new GPU would be within budget. RTX 3070 would be a decent low-end choice I suppose, but it's "only" about as fast as a 2080 Ti - so not a huge uplift for him. But that thing is still more expensive (new) than buying a Z690 mobo and 12th gen CPU. In more normal times, I would agree that dropping in a new GPU for $300 to $400 or so would be the way to go. Alas ...

 

S.

 

[Tonester]

Thanks guys…i overclocked my CPU and its stable at around 5.1 which is an improvement…my ram has always run at 2133 even though it should run at 3600…some time back i approached the guy that built the pc and he was like ‘ no no that is normal, it will ramp up when it needs to’…not being very pc savy i took that as gospel on face value ( dumb, yes i know now)…today i thought i would bite the bullet and see if i could get my ram to run at 3600…no matter what i tried it would revert back to 2133 when i got out of bios and back into win10…so looked a little deeper and found the builder had put the ram in slots A1 and B1 instead of A2 and B2…which apparently is why it wouldnt run at advertised speed…thought that was really odd for a PC builder as the manual clearly states you should use the number 2 slots first…so i swapped the ram  to the number 2 slots and pc wouldnt boot no matter what i tried…and it looks like there is either a faulty socket or bent pin at the cpu (according to everything i have since read on the interwebs) …im starting to wonder if this guy knew damn well the number 2 slots were screwed and thats why he didnt use them…i suspect he also knew it would never run at 3600 without using those slots…lesson learned…never paying someone to build me a pc again, will save up, buy the components, and do it myself…oh and the guy that built my PC 2 years ago is no longer reachable and his web page and facebook for his business have vanished! *sigh* ?

Edited February 21, 2023 by Tonester

[dgiatr]

12 minutes ago, 1Sascha said:

IIRC there's no real need at this point to go Z790 - especially these days when mobo-prices have also gone quite a bit off the rails.

Might as well buy Z690 which would be a little cheaper and the only real downside is that you may have to flash the BIOS to make it 13th gen compatible. I can't confirm it from own experience, but AFAIK my MSI Z690 Tomahawk DDR4 is 13th gen ready for example. All it would need is a BIOS-update.

 

 

 

 

Yes i can confirm it from my own experience too , i own an Asus z690 P D4 mobo and indeed i only had to do a current BIOS update in order to work together with my new 13th gen  i9 13900kf cpu. No problem so far they work flawlessly together.   

Edited February 21, 2023 by dgiatr

[TheSNAFU]

Assuming you have two identical

Dimms and they are dual channel it should run at 3600 in the right slots but it’s likely you need to set it to an xmp profile in the bios. Just setting it to 3600 may not work. 

[=SRS=SLaXOR]

Hi guys. I've got i7-7700k bundled with rtx 4080. Yeah, I know CPU is old but it runs on 50% max thread load. Is it worth upgrading? The  CPU can load GPU up to 100% with maxed out settings.

My concern is that in fpsVR I sometime see a high CPU timeframe while CPU max-thread load is at 50%. I'm wondering if it is a signal that CPU needs an upgrade.. but again I'm really puzzled why CPU thread maxload at no more than 50%. I'm got RAM at CL15@3000 with Z170 chipset.

 

Thanks!

[jollyjack]

23 hours ago, 1Sascha said:

IIRC there's no real need at this point to go Z790 - especially these days when mobo-prices have also gone quite a bit off the rails.

Might as well buy Z690 which would be a little cheaper and the only real downside is that you may have to flash the BIOS to make it 13th gen compatible. I can't confirm it from own experience, but AFAIK my MSI Z690 Tomahawk DDR4 is 13th gen ready for example. All it would need is a BIOS-update

 

 

I was told differently regarding 13th gen i9; it seems to have a differing multicore behavior and the z790 seems to be what you need. Future proof?

the LGA1700 CPU socket seems to be changing again after the 13th generation too.

[dgiatr]

9 hours ago, slaxor said:

Hi guys. I've got i7-7700k bundled with rtx 4080. Yeah, I know CPU is old but it runs on 50% max thread load. Is it worth upgrading? The  CPU can load GPU up to 100% with maxed out settings.

My concern is that in fpsVR I sometime see a high CPU timeframe while CPU max-thread load is at 50%. I'm wondering if it is a signal that CPU needs an upgrade.. but again I'm really puzzled why CPU thread maxload at no more than 50%. I'm got RAM at CL15@3000 with Z170 chipset.

 

Thanks!

IL2 application has very strange behavior while running. It loads too much one single thread each time and a little some others, but that heavy loaded thread jumps from thread to thread and from core to core so your cpu thread maxload of no more than 50% isn't a real indicator of your cpu load. What affects il2 performance relatively to cpu is its single thread performance and cache memory. The higher single thread performance it has, the more effective will be your cpu while playing IL2.

 

Your memory speed is quite sufficient i think.

 

Since your gpu is 100% loaded and you dont suffer from any stuttering or slow motion effects while flying into any heavy scenery with many planes, tanks, smokes, airfields, e.t.c. then i dont think you have to upgrade your cpu for now..did you test your P.C. with SYNVANDER benchmark test?

 

       

Edited February 22, 2023 by dgiatr

[1Sascha]

11 minutes ago, jollyjack said:

I was told differently regarding 13th gen i9; it seems to have a differing multicore behavior and the z790 seems to be what you need.

Like I said: *AFAIK*, the Z790 doesn't offer that much more over the Z690 .... not sure if that's true for all mobo/CPU combos plus I could be misinformed. That said: We're probably talking about differences that won't really matter outside of synthetic benchmarks or very specific workloads.

 

13 minutes ago, jollyjack said:

Future proof?

the LGA1700 CPU socket seems to be changing again after the 13th generation too.

Nothing is "future proof" in this business... just look at all those "gaming on a 10 year old ultimate gaming-PC ... today"-videos on YT.

In the more recent past, Intel have pretty much always switched to a new socket every two generations. And from what I hear, even precious AMD have broken promises of continued support of certain sockets, etc. Heck... I remember the ColecoVision I had as a kid and its marketing campaign around the "window into the future" - which was some sort of expansion slot built into the front of the console, meant to turn the thing into a home computer ("Adam"?) at some point in the future.. ?

 

IMO, even with 13th gen/Z790 out, 12th gen/Z690 is still plenty fast enough for most people's needs and seeing how insane mobo-prices have become, I wouldn't feel the need to go Z790 at the moment if buying Z690/13th gen meant I could save a few bucks.

I, for one, only see one valid upgrade for my system (12600K/Z690) in the near future and that is to go 12600K to 13700K on the same board. I'll probably wait with that until 14th gen comes around, because I'm still happy with my current CPU's performance and because I'm speculating that 13th gen will become more affordable once 14th gen and a new Intel socket are released.

 

 

 

S.

[=SRS=SLaXOR]

17 hours ago, dgiatr said:

IL2 application has very strange behavior while running. It loads too much one single thread each time and a little some others, but that heavy loaded thread jumps from thread to thread and from core to core so your cpu thread maxload of no more than 50% isn't a real indicator of your cpu load. What affects il2 performance relatively to cpu is its single thread performance and cache memory. The higher single thread performance it has, the more effective will be your cpu while playing IL2.

 

Your memory speed is quite sufficient i think.

 

Since your gpu is 100% loaded and you dont suffer from any stuttering or slow motion effects while flying into any heavy scenery with many planes, tanks, smokes, airfields, e.t.c. then i dont think you have to upgrade your cpu for now..did you test your P.C. with SYNVANDER benchmark test?

 

       

 

Thanks for the explanation. Is it what Il2 devs have confirmed or it is tribal knowledge?

I'm having an fps drop from 90 down to 60 over the towns where CPU timeframe is getting into the yellow-red zone. So as per your explanation it is time to upgrade the CPU independently on 50% load ? Which sucks honestly...

[dgiatr]

4 hours ago, slaxor said:

 

Thanks for the explanation. Is it what Il2 devs have confirmed or it is tribal knowledge?

I'm having an fps drop from 90 down to 60 over the towns where CPU timeframe is getting into the yellow-red zone. So as per your explanation it is time to upgrade the CPU independently on 50% load ? Which sucks honestly...

 

Look here :

 

you will find some useful information about cpu load while playing IL2 and how important is  cpu single thread performance especially for IL2.....look TUS_Samuel graphs and explanation...

 

Especially for your case , since you already own a powerful card , i suggest you should check your cpu performance by doing Synvander Benchmark 1080p CPU TEST , look here :

 

   

its  "5. RUN CPU TEST in 1080p"    in first post.

 

For me with my old i5 10600k  (no O.C.) and ddr4 3200 cl14, i had about 89 fps average and i suffered from terrible stuttering and slow motion effects especially flying into heavy scenery MP servers as Finnish or Combat Box. 

After some basic O.C. i gained about 10 fps during synvander benchmark 1080 cpu test so total 99 fps, and things got better but still suffering from some stuttering-slow motion during heavy scenery in MP servers.

I finally got i9 13900kf with same memory sticks of 3200 cl14 and new asus z690 p d4 mobo and have about 154 fps during 1080p cpu test and minimal stuttering only during very heavy scenery.   

 

i own a 3090 ti gpu, flying with relatively low resolution settings so gpu bottleneck isnt an issue i think... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by dgiatr

[chiliwili69]

6 hours ago, slaxor said:

I'm having an fps drop from 90 down to 60 over the towns where CPU timeframe is getting into the yellow-red zone

 

If the CPU timeframe is the one going to yellow-red (and not your GPU timeframe) then you are ok with your GPU (for the current settings you normally use). So, no need to upgrade GPU.

 

Then going to the CPU/RAM question:

There will be a very small gain going from 9700K to 9900K. The L3 cache is 12Mb versus 16Mb, so not a big difference. It will be in the order of 2-3 fps in the CPU test (so 1-2 in VR). So no worth the money. 

You current RAM is this one with latencies 19-20-20-40:

https://www.gskill.com/product/165/169/1536045873/F4-3600C19D-32GSXWB

More RAM (going to 64Gb) will give you ZERO gain.

The max speed for your mobo is 3600, and the available RAMs fr your Mobo with lower latencies are:

https://www.gskill.com/configurator?page=1&cls=1529635169&manufacturer=1524725289&chipset=1539224612&model=1539224781&adSearch2=Tested_Speed§3600 MT/s,Tested_Latency§16-16-16-36,

So you will go from 19-20-20-40 to 16-16-16-36. The gain will be very small. In the order of 3-4 fps in the CPU test (so 2-3 in VR). So no worth the money.

 

If you want to upgrade, and depending on budget, it would make more sense to go to a new Mobo+CPU (keeping everything else including RAM).

 

A z690/z690 with DDR4 is around 200$:

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#s=40&f=2&mt=ddr4&sort=price&c=152,162

 

Then go to the 13600K or 13700K depending on budget.

 

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by chiliwili69

[Tonester]

26 minutes ago, chiliwili69 said:

 

If the CPU timeframe is the one going to yellow-red (and not your GPU timeframe) then you are ok with your GPU (for the current settings you normally use). So, no need to upgrade GPU.

 

Then going to the CPU/RAM question:

There will be a very small gain going from 9700K to 9900K. The L3 cache is 12Mb versus 16Mb, so not a big difference. It will be in the order of 2-3 fps in the CPU test (so 1-2 in VR). So no worth the money. 

You current RAM is this one with latencies 19-20-20-40:

https://www.gskill.com/product/165/169/1536045873/F4-3600C19D-32GSXWB

More RAM (going to 64Gb) will give you ZERO gain.

The max speed for your mobo is 3600, and the available RAMs fr your Mobo with lower latencies are:

https://www.gskill.com/configurator?page=1&cls=1529635169&manufacturer=1524725289&chipset=1539224612&model=1539224781&adSearch2=Tested_Speed§3600 MT/s,Tested_Latency§16-16-16-36,

So you will go from 19-20-20-40 to 16-16-16-36. The gain will be very small. In the order of 3-4 fps in the CPU test (so 2-3 in VR). So no worth the money.

 

If you want to upgrade, and depending on budget, it would make more sense to go to a new Mobo+CPU (keeping everything else including RAM).

 

A z690/z690 with DDR4 is around 200$:

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#s=40&f=2&mt=ddr4&sort=price&c=152,162

 

Then go to the 13600K or 13700K depending on budget.

 

 

thanks so much for the advice mate i appreciate it

[=SRS=SLaXOR]

Gonna try and see if my scores are aligned with benchmark's baselines.

 

In case of upgrade, would i5-12600k be good enough for 90 FPS in VR in both Il-2 and DCS (that's my goal) or I need to go further up? I will appreciate your opinion. And in terms of Mobo, do I really need Z-series if I'm not going to overclock? I was thinking about B660 for a better value.

Edited February 23, 2023 by slaxor

[chiliwili69]

On 2/24/2023 at 12:22 AM, slaxor said:

In case of upgrade, would i5-12600k be good enough for 90 FPS in VR in both Il-2 and DCS (that's my goal)

 

I really don´t know DCS.

 

For IL-2, you will see a big improvement in VR going from 7700K to a i5-12600K.

 

12th and 13th intel generation made a substantial improvement in single-thread performance.

 

Having 90fps always is something relative to the settings you use and how dense is the scene. But the 12600K will allow you to be 95% of the time at 90fps at very decent graphics settings.

 

Regardnig the Z vs B series mobos, it is also important for the RAM they support, not all RAM modela are supported by all Mobos. Typically Z series support better RAMs. I learnt that with my current B660 Mobo.

 

On the Ryzen Mobos you have the same with the X series or B series. Apart from the RAM thing, I have not seen they give an advantage in the SYN_VAnder benchmark for the same CPU.

 

If you finally go to a B series and the i5-12600K it would interesting to see your performance.

 

[chiliwili69]

 

But I would better go (for almost same price) to 13th gen rather than 12th gen. IL-2 is sensitive to cache sizes and 13th gen offers more L3 and L2 caches for the same models i9-i7-i5. And higher clock and better IPCs:

[jollyjack]

got my 12th six months ago, 13th was far more expensive LoL