Hi all, I am looking to get back into simming after a long hiatus, and the first step is to get a decent computer. I’ve done some basic research and come up with the specs below, but I’m not sure whether this is likely to be enough to run the game with (or close to) ultra settings at 4K when I intend to fly large addon aircraft out of busy airports with lots of traffic enabled. I already have the 4K monitors (27") for photo editing (I have two set up but only intend to run the sim on a single screen, with other data e.g. charts on the other screen.
Some specific questions:
Will the setup be enough to run without stutter as described above?
Should I be looking at a faster SSD or is that a minor factor?
Should I be looking at 64GB RAM?
The build below is about the limit of my budget, but I could stretch for more RAM given it’s fairly cheap.
AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 8 Core AM5 4.2GHz
32GB DDR5 6000MHz RAM (2x16GB)
RTX 4070 TI 12GB
4TB M.2 SSD (7400MB/s read 6500MB/s write speed) - will have OS and MSFS on the one drive.
1000W PSU
Any feedback or suggestions on alternative configs would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Excellent CPU. The only issue is speculative. If FS2024 does indeed greatly improve multi-core utilization, then more CPU cores (7900X3D 12-core, or even 7950X3D 16-core) might be useful.
Game runs fine on 32GB RAM. Yours is plenty fast. I have 64GB, but I use 16GB for a RAMdrive that stores my cache files.
I would consider getting the 4070 Ti Super. 16GB VRAM > 12GB VRAM.
I would add a smaller drive for the OS, keeping the 4TB drive for everything else.
1000W PSU should be fine. Don’t cheap out on that part. I believe a lot of stability problems can be traced to PSU’s that aren’t up to the task. (If you do get the 7900X3D or 7950X3D, then get a 1300W PSU.)
Oh, and one more thing…
Do not expect ‘stutter free’ performance. I’m convinced you could rent time on a Cray supercomputer and still suffer a lack of perfection. Spend time here reading about folks with the very best components available who complain about stutters in complex planes in certain areas - especially when they max out all the options (traffic, etc.)
Good advice re. a 2nd small m2 nvMe drive for the OS - this can save so much time and trouble further down the line!
Absolutely correct about the trade-off between bleeding-edge visuals and stuttery performance at the limit too. If you want lots of traffic, multiplayer, live weather, photogrammetry and complex aircraft & airports in all-ultra settings, you are going to have to make compromises or adjust settings somewhere, regardless of pc spec.
I reckon one of the Cray machines designed for the EuroHPC network would probably manage MSFS ok, but I was shocked to see how much better my modern phone is compared to “super” computers from the 80’s!
Hi there … I have just asked and received some amazingly useful advice for my 4K build. Recommend your review this thread as I think you’ll find tons of advice relevant to you: New PC to Support MSFS Triple 55" 4K TV Build
What is the budget? Using DSR DLSS, I easily max out my 16GB VRAM already on 1440p, so you might consider a 4090 for a full blown 4K build… Or go AMD, as far as I read, the first impression of AFMF is pretty neat in MSFS and my speculation is that MSFS2024 will fully support FSR3 right from the start. The 7900XT(X) is considerably cheaper than a 4090…
Thanks everyone for the responses and advice, truly appreciated!
I am convinced about upgrading on the graphics - either to the 4070 Ti Super or the 7900XTX (which is about $80 more for an uptick of a few FPS based on some comparisons I’ve seen). As nice as the 4090 would be, it is beyond my budget. I have seen that most people tend towards Nvidia over AMD for GPUs - are there drawbacks that would make the 7900XTX a poor choice? And are the specs comparable between platforms (e.g. would an Nvidia with, say, 16GB memory and clock speed of 2600MHz, have similar performance to an AMD with the same specs)?
BuzzJungle, I’ll also check out your thread, thanks for the link!
And thanks all for tempering my expectations around stutter
Well, regarding raw performance, the 7900XTX can compete with the 4090 in MSFS quiet easily, it was the features from nVIDIA that spoke in favour of the nVIDIA cards (Frame Generation in particular, DLSS for less powerful cards). But now, with the newest AMD driver suite, AFMF (a driver based pendent to nVIDIAs frame generation) is available and according to my knowledge, it works pretty nicely in MSFS. Drawback of the 7900XT(X) is the comparably high power consumption (more heat in your rig), positive might be the absence of this annoying 12VHPWR connector.
But yes, the clock speed of the RAM has zero impact on how good your GPU performs when comparing AMD and nVIDIA (how could it).
So NO, if the PSU is powerful enough, a 7900XTX would for sure be not a poor choice. And it offers 24GB VRAM for way much less than the 4090.
Personally, I did go with a 4080 just because at this very moment, no frame generation alternative was available and I did not want to upgrade my PSU basically making the cost advantage of the 7900XT(X) obsolete back then.
I was poking around yesterday and found this site that lists GPUs by Gpixel/s rating. Gpixel/s is a measure of how many pixels the GPU can pump per second. My 3080Ti is only 186 Gpixel/s and you can see on the site that there is a surprising variety of rates among the latest cards.
My main specs are i7-13700KF / 32 gb DDR5 RAM / RTX 4070Ti. I play at 4k with Ultra settings, typically getting around 90 FPS with frame generation on (less at complex airports of course but still around 50-60). The RAM is more than enough, I haven’t seen more than 60 % being in use yet. The VRAM is pretty close to being maxed out so a little more would not hurt, but I think 12 gb is still adequate and overall my experience is very smooth. Coming from the Series X it’s definitely on a different level now and I’m very happy.
I’m pretty happy with my 3090 Ti 24GB. I never see more than 1/2 the VRAM used in the current version of the sim. Hopefully I’ll be fine for a few more years.
That 7900XTX sure does boast some impressive numbers, though…especially for the cost!
I’m happy with my 3080Ti for now as well. I was running some numbers to see how many pixels my G2 pushed at 90hz and compared that to the theoretical limit of my 3080Ti. We have lots of headroom. If I were to buy now I would go with the 40xx/7900 cards.
You can do the same with CPUs on that site. I had to add a metric to the default page.
I was impressed by the Ryzen/Radeon stuff. You can get top of the line throughput without the brand name price tag.
Seems to me that if you can get a 4080 Super Founders edition at $999 that’s the way to go. The 4070 Ti Super doesn’t have a founder’s edition so its price will probably be higher than MSRP.
For $80 the upgrade to the 7900XTX is a no-brainer to me. I’ve got similar specs in my PC as to what you are considering with a 7900x3d + 7900XTX (see my profile for details).
See my post here from the other day after I upgraded to the latest AMD driver with frame gen - I couldn’t be happier!
I have 64GB RAM as well. I use 15GB for a RAMdrive that runs my Rolling Cache. I might bump that up to 30GB, seeing as how the sim runs fine on 32GB.
DM me if you want more details. It wasn’t super easy to set up, but it’s been working great since I did. Some would argue that it’s unnecessary with a good internet connection (which I also have) but IMHO “Why not use RAM, when it’s so much faster than either network connections or disk access?”
Why? Because there are many reports of how using gigs of rolling cache can easily lead to several unwanted side effects after an update affecting what you have in the cache. So you need to clean it regularly and because of this, I see absolutely no use of it with a fast inet connection.
