I want to build a new VR High End PC and need some advice?
At the moment I have a I7 7700k, 1080ti, 32GB DDR4, 1TB NVME with a quest 2 which i will upgrade next year to something better.
as long as you have a minimum of 6 (or 8 for future proofing) cores, higher cpu frequency is better.
don’t buy 5800x3d (IMO), it’s based on the old zen 3 architecture, zen 4 has just come out. as well as intel 13th gen, consider a ryzen 7700x. the 3d cache versions of the previous gen amd chips are better fps wise but only at 1080p, do u play msfs at 1080p or 4k? if you use vr it’s more like 4k, 3d cache chips have little to no extra oomph here. if u go with zen 4 amd it’s highly likely you’ll have an upgrade path for your cpu for a good few years. u don’t get that with intel.
Also a factor worth considering for your choice is the support in favour of Intel based processors over AMD at team MSFS. You could end up in an unplayable state frantically searching for setting Nirvana until the next update or hot fix.
Sounds like you have some good ideas for the new build, which is great.
Something I realised today after watching a few videos on YouTube is the physical size of the RTX 4090. It’s a massive card and looks like it possibly may not fit in a typical PC case.
I’m keen to get an RTX 4090 in future, however, I might need a bigger case first.
I’m currently on a i9 10900 w a 3090 gpu. I fly almost entirely in VR and it’s my CPU that’s my current bottleneck. I was planning on upgrading to the 13900 in the next month or two. But having seen some benchmarks of the 5800 x3d, I’m now going to hold off until the 7000 series x3d comes out and it gets benchmarked and reviewed. Unless it’s a complete dud for some reason - or the 13900 surpasses expectations - I’m thinking it’s going to be my next cpu. So I’m just going to wait a bit longer, I guess…
That has been fundamentally untrue in MSFS. Look through the forums. The 5800x3D is 15-20 FPS better than any other current CPU. Even at its modest MHZ. In benchmarks, it’s proven to be 50% faster than the 12900k in CPU bottleneck situations. I can run a TLOD of 250 or 300 in the fenix in VR without losing the GPU bottleneck of my 3090. Even Intel’s own power point slide benchmarks couldn’t make the 13900k look better than the 5800x3D. The cache is king in MSFS as it stands not MHZ. Not MHZ at all.
The problem for the original OP is if you aren’t on AM4 the upgrade path is murky. If the x3D is an indicator of what’s to come with the 7000 series x3D chips then you risk being 40-50% behind and out $800 on Intels eco system.
I would upgrade that GPU and push clouds, shadows, and resolution and relax on the TLOD with the 7700k until the 7000 series x3D chips show what they can do. Then make a CPU decision. You’ll know is 120 days or so.
I do look through the forums. I seen a VR user here buy a x3d cpu and experience no average fps increase, he posted graphs analyzing his findings, the thread is somewhere on here. The only gain he made were improved 1% lows. From what i’ve seen, the x3d cpu makes a difference at 1080p only, in VR we don’t game at 1080p, it’s more like 4k.
EDIT: I found the thread made by the x3d user, here are his findings (x3d vs 5600x). He found he made no average fps gains in VR.
The x3d cpu, in fact any cpu, doesn’t make a great deal of impact at 4k. There’s various 4k gaming benchmarks that show this, here is a screenshot of a 4k gaming benchmark video that shows a 12900K vs a 6 year old 7700K at 4K cyberpunk, there’s only a 10% fps difference. Imagine the difference between a 12900K and x3d cpu at 4K, it will be negligible.
I’m not saying you are wrong, where does this belief come from? I see many users of AMD cpu’s on these forums and they don’t seem to have any less performance.
Those are my benchmarks with the 5800X3D in VR and yes, although I got a much smoother experience in VR than my previous 5600X, I did not see a noticeable gain in FPS. It was way smoother though.
In 2D however at 1440p the results were really impressive. My FPS, even at Heathrow in the stock A320 on the ultra preset went up by 20fps or more. I can get 84 fps on the tarmac and close to 100fps at 1,000ft over central London using DX12 in SU10. That’s way more than I got with the 5600X. Note, my GPU is high end, but the Radeon 6800XT while matching or beating nVidia at 1440p is not as good as an nVidia 3080 or 3090 at 4K. This may explain my VR versus 2D performance differences.
ok, cpu makes a difference at 1080p and 1440p, but it doesn’t really at 4k. this is pretty common knowledge. in vr we are using resolutions of 4k and often beyond (combined resolution for both eyes).
Agreed, though MSFS is one of the few games where the CPU can still make a difference at 4K or even higher, depending on the plane you select. The FBW or Fenix A320’s do way more CPU stuff than the stock A320 for example, as does the H145 Helicopter compared to my humble (and really great) De Havilland Tiger Moth biplane. I have no idea how much more load MP and live Wx etc also adds to the CPU. Sims are really different that shoot’ em ups.
Long story short, I’ll stick with the 5800X3D for now, in favour of upgrading to an nVidia 4090 and upgrade my CPU later if AMD’s next gen X3D CPUs can deliver the goods. Or go broke in the meantime…sigh.
Right. We all know if you are GPU limited then CPUs won’t move the needle that much but remember the OPs original question was in regards to a new system with a 4090. The chances of them running into a CPU bottleneck increase, but yeah I guess one could argue VR is always a GPU bottleneck so it’s fine to buy a more expensive processor and RAM and MB that performs worse but it doesn’t make a lot of sense.
One percent lows aren’t trivial either. All in all I think it still stands that for now the cache is making a big difference in MSFS. You can push the CPU further in VR with it, mostly with AI and TLOD. If those don’t matter to OP and they go with no AI and 100 TLOD then I wouldn’t even recommend a 13900k but looking at those specs they wants the top performer.
As it stands that’s the cache and 5800x3D. Of course, a 13900k has not been tested in MSFS yet that I have seen. So it’s not a 0% chance it won’t perform better than the 5800x3D, but early evidence isn’t showing much reason to believe it will. Lastly, if OP uses his computer for lots of other things non gaming the 13900k will likely have other value.
That’s last gen tech though, 12900k, 3090, DDR 4 3600mhz ram etc, it will be another month or two before all the latest tech is available in systems and I’d assume at least £1000 more expensive.
It makes a difference at every resolution, it’s just the higher the resolution the more the GPU comes into play. It’s not about fps, fps is primarily determined by your GPU, especially at higher resolutions. It’s about frame timings, CPU bottlenecks and stutters. I don’t care about having more fps in VR, I want to experience better CPU frametimes and less bottlenecking and stutters.
Currently the 5800 X3D is the highest rated CPU for MSFS, eclipsing even the 7950X just released. Note, it’s not nearly as good a CPU overall, it’s productivity usage is comparatively terrible, but as a pure gaming CPU, the extra cache is huge.
Personally, if I was buying a PC now I’d wait for a 7000 series CPU with X3D cache to launch, which is believed for early next year, but if the OP doesn’t want to wait that long, the 5800X3D is the best CPU he can get, for MSFS, although clearly not for overall productivity.
Only thing I’d add to this discussion is that with a 4090 you probably want a psu in the 1300-1600w range. Also, make sure it has the right power connectors, depending on the make of gpu you buy. Newer versions of psu’s should include this. Otherwise your initial specs look pretty good imho. Also make sure you water cool your cpu, maybe even better, also your gpu.
1000 watt will be fine. I have an 850 watt for a 3090 and its been fine for two years. The power consumption isn’t as high as first feared, only 450 watts on the general models. You’d only need higher if you were doing crazy 600 watt overclocks.
