Hi
I run Flight Simulator on AMD Ryzen 3 1200 (@ 3.8Ghz), RX 570, 16 GB RAM, 1080p monitor. FS runs…well quite nice on medium/high settings (and some non-essential settings to OFF: bloom, lens corrections, etc.). I know, it is a minimum configuration. I’d like to upgrade CPU first. The best would be Ryzen 5 3600 (but it’s very expensive rigtht now), so I think about Ryzen 3 3100. Is it worth to upgrade from 1200 to 3100 (4c/4t vs 4c/8t and HT) ?
I know that new Ryzens are comming (but prices will probably be high). So, for now Ryzen 3 3100 and later GTX 1660 Super or RX 5600 XT. What do you think?
The game likes a lot of cores…
Other than that I might look for a benchmark with a similar configuration.
There’s a few posts with links if you search for CPU or GPU.
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That’s not true, it hardly can keep 4 cores busy.
At this point I’d wait with an upgrade. Soon AMD will present their next Ryzen generation and the 3x00 CPUs should drop in price.
I’m running on a 2300X, 16GB RAM and the RX570 8GB and basically all the time GPU and CPU are mostly maxed out at High settings. Which means if I get a better CPU the game won’t run much better sind then the GPU will remain the bottleneck.
As long as they don’t utilize more cores/threads, a CPU upgrade will mainly help if you have higher clock speeds per core and/or have a more modern architecture with better support of instruction sets.
But even that only if your GPU is not the bottleneck (you’d have to reduce GPU-heavy graphics settings to benefit from the better CPU).
I’d say even a low-end 3000 series will crush a 1200. Performance has improved by a lot.
In terms of raw CPU performance Cinebench R15 you’re looking at a +36% single-core boost and +110% multi-core boost.
In addition, the 3100 isn’t awful compared to more expensive CPUs either. Here’s the 1080p Medium CPU portion of Tom’s Hardware’s MSFS test:
Full test is here.
The 3100 is a bit faster than the 3400G overall*, though that is of course with a monster GPU so you’re getting a best-case for what the CPU can do in that graph.
* That’s because the 3400G is an APU (CPU + integrated graphics) where the CPU cores are actually based on the Zen+ architecture, as used in the regular 2000 series. So it’s basically a 2000-series CPU with graphics.
That test is based on a 2080Ti which means it’s mostly CPU bound (the GPU has no issues at Ultra settings at 1080p). I would not expect these results to be close as significant with a RX570.
Updating CPU only won’t bring a lot performance if you don’t want to reduce graphics settings.
You might be right on the math, but it sure looks like the are moving to multithreaded architecture to me. (The only thing running of not is MSFS 2020).
That test is based on a 2080Ti which means it’s mostly CPU bound (the GPU has no issues at Ultra settings at 1080p). I would not expect these results to be close as significant with a RX570.
Updating CPU only won’t bring a lot performance if you don’t want to reduce graphics settings.
Right, that’s what I meant by saying it’s a best-case scenario what the CPU can do. I’m definitely not suggesting OP will get a 110% boost in frame rate.
@AlienDjinn Loading and rendering are very different things, so that’s rather meaningless.
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Quad cores for Christmas it is!
Are you suggesting to upgrade GPU first? As I said, I’m low on budget 
and I can’t afford to buy new CPU and GPU right now. So maybe stay with Ryzen 3 1200 (3.8Ghz) and buy something like GTX 1660 Super/5600XT?
I guess you’re more CPU bound right now, so if anything, then a better CPU might bring you a little more than GPU. One can still reduce graphics settings to get more out of the GPU which doesn’t really work for CPU load.
But I’m in the same situation with a similar system and I decided to wait. In November there’s Black Friday where usually hardware drops in price as well as AMD has presented their new CPU line.
Also I first want to see where MSFS is heading, maybe they improve performance further and make better use of many CPU cores/threads.
So for the time being, I’d save the money. The best thing would be to upgrade both, CPU and GPU.
Did you check the FPS display in the developers menu? Is it showing MainThread or GPU as limiter?
Instead of the Ryzen 3100, the 3300X is a better choice, but if you can wait to save some money the 3600 is the way to go. The new ryzen 5000 serie will be announced the 8th, expect in the next weeks some sales on Ryzen 3000 serie / price drop.
One more thing, make sure your motherboard is compatible with Ryzen 3000 series.
Yes. Most of the time it shows: limited by GPU. MainThread was the problem before patch 1.8.3.
Yes, but show me the shop where I can buy it 
I have MSI B-450-A PRO MAX and it is compatibile with Ryzen 3000.
Well…I’ll wait. You are right. We are close to new AMD CPU line (and GPU). Prices of Zen2 line should drop.
And I didn’t wait 
I was able to buy used (still 2 years on the guarantee) Ryzen 5 2600 in very good price. I overclocked it to 4.0 Ghz. On Ryzen 3 1200 I had red graph in MainThread (sometimes) and GPU (GPU most of the time). Now MainThread is much, much better but now there is huge bottleneck So, now it’s time to collect money on the new GPU.
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Hope the FPS increased a little, or at least there are less stutters 
Yes. FPS are much more stable, less stutters. I think CPU clocks (3.8 Ghz vs 4Ghz) doesn’t matter so much but 4c/4t vs 6c/12t does the job. Now CPU usage is about 70-85%, and GPU 100% all the time.