I’m currently thinking about upgrading my PC to a top of the line rig, with a CPU and GPU of the latest generation. Since for that I would need to get a bigger tower, different mainboard, new power supply and new coolers, it’s basically the whole system that I would need to replace.
I was willing to shelve out about 4000 € for my new system, but as it looks right now, there is no way to get a 4000 series and the latest CPU for that price. For example, a local PC hardware store wants to charge me 5290 € for the following build: i9 13800K, RTX 4090, 64 GB DDR5, 1 GB M.2 SSD, 1200 W power supply. Having the same config but with a 4080 and a i7 instead of a i9, would still be 4500 €.
Aren’t those prices a bit excessive, or is this what you have to pay today? I would try to get the components myself, but most don’t ship to my country or are out of stock, so I have limited options.
Well, if you’re definitely only interested in top-of-the-line choices, so a 4090 for GPU and either a top-end Intel 13th gen or an AMD 7000 series + X3D as the CPU, then yeah, you’re going to have to hold your nose and spend the money.
GPU prices are unlikely to drop much for current-gen cards. Poor availability is still a thing, but not so much of a thing as it was in 2020-2022. The Nvidia MSRP for the 4090 is (in GBP) £1600, and while equivalent pricing in other countries is not a simple matter of exchange rates, it’s not going to be substantially cheaper anywhere else. Scan, as mentioned above, has plenty of 4090s in stock for prices between £1650 and £2200. Prices are not artificially inflated because of scarcity, the way they were not so long ago.
CPU pricing is what it is. Intel and AMD will always charge top dollar for their highest-end CPUs. I tend to be more willing to compromise a little on the CPU than the GPU, because if you go for the right chip and are able to overclock it well, you can get very close to the top-end performance with a substantially cheaper chip. But then this is the guy who swapped out a 12900K he had only bought six months before for a 13900K to get a very modest performance improvement, so I’m maybe not the best person to ask about budgeting.
Assuming you’re in the EU (since you’re quoting prices in Euros), is it even a thing to maybe get someone to buy components for you in another EU state where there is availability and ship them to you privately? Cutting out the middle-man can save a lot of money, and system builders have to make their money somewhere. This is why I always build myself.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m trying to do now. That takes a little bit more effort and time but I think will be my best option. They have here where I live some all in one pre build and ready to ship PCs (mostly from HP) which do have pretty much the config I want. But I got burned with HP Omen before. They had horrible customer support and their machine was absolutely not upgradable, apart from memory.
Building yourself may take a little longer but should save a little money. I got my GPU a couple months after my initial build. The nice thing is, you get to see how much impact the GPU actually has.
I had a 13900k paired with my old 3080ti for a while. The CPU was a nice bump & the 4090 took it to Smoothville.
(If you’re going to spend the money, go ahead and get a 13900k & 4090.)
Don’t watch euro prices but 4000 euro translated into my currency gets you a kicking machine and we always seem to be on the expensive side. I can only assume that a big part of that cost is for them to build it for you. Either that or prices in the EU have gone up even more that the rest of the world. I don’t feel quite so bad about the price of my upgrade now. Relative bargain.
I just built a new PC and spent around $5,600 USD. Does not include my monitor which is an Ultra Wide 4k LG which was around $1,200. Here are my specs:
AMD Ryzen 7950X3d
ASUS ROG Strix RTX 4090
ROG Crosshair x670E HERO MB
GSkill Trident Z5 NEO RGB Ram 64GB at 6000 MHZ
ROG THOR 1200W Platinum II
Seagate Firecude 530 4TB NvME SSD
Corsair iCUE 7000x RGB Full Tower
Corsair iCUE H170i Elite Capellix XT Liquid CPU Cooler
Sim runs like a dream in 4K and GPU temps in the high 40’s-55ish range. TLOD 300 and OLD 200 Ultra everything else.
Here is another data point. I built my rig the day after I got my hands on the just released AMD 7950X3d CPU (March 2023)…
CPU - AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3d
MB - ASRock AM5 X670E Taichi
GPU - Zotac Trinity OC RTX 4090
RAM - GSkill Trident Z5 RGB DDR5-5600 64GB (2x32GB)
Storage - WD Black SN850X NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD 2TB (x2)
Storage - Crucial MX500 SSD SATA III 4TB (for longer-term non-game storage)
Storage - Corsair Force MP510 NVMe PCIe 3.0 M.2 SSD 480GB (this is for the Windows OS) (I already had this on hand from a previous build that I wound up not using there so used it here.)
so total storage 8.48 TB
Case - Cooler Master HAF700 EVO
CPU Cooling - Cooler Master MasterLiquid PL360 Flux AIO
Power Supply - ASUS ROG Thor Platinum II 1000 W ATX-form
All in: $5278 US. I could have gone for a less ostentatious case and saved another $300-400, but the other parts are rock solid. The single most expensive part, unsurprisingly was the GPU, but I definitely subscribe to the philosophy of “When in doubt, buy the highest level product you can afford.” My choices were informed by my past issues with earlier versions of MSFS that suffered from weak hardware (and much more limited means!)
It took me all day to build it, but have not looked back since. With my rig, too, MSFS runs butter-smooth at Ultra settings and CPU temps in the 40-mid 50’s range (C). If you can, just get the parts and build it yourself as opposed to having a store build it for you. Not only will you get the satisfaction of saving money and DIY, but you will know intimately what upgrade possibilities lie ahead, though with this kind of setup that may not be for years.
Interesting topic. It made me ask myself what I would do if I were to build a PC now. As background, I currently have:
AMD Ryzen 7 3700X with stock cooler
RTX3080 10GB
32GB DDR4 3200
WD Black SN750 NVM2 250GB (OS)
WD Black SN750 NVMe 500GB (MSFS)
Assorted other SSDs for other data
I run it 2D only on a 32" 4K monitor at mostly Ultra and typically get around 40FPS. A heavy custom airport like FSimStudios CYVR plus FSLTL can drop it below 30FPS briefly on occasion, depending on what I am doing. This is what it looks like over New York for instance, showing 41FPS at 4K:
I am completely satisfied with this performance and have no desire or intention to upgrade. But if? I looked at two options:
Going all out
What I would consider a good price/performance balance at tis stage
I just did a very “quick and dirty” budget look, using one website only (Newegg in Canada) and without my normal rather rigorous comparison of specific components before making a choice. These are two of an infinite number of options that I quickly slapped together:
I did not include shipping, nor build costs, as I have always built my own PCs. Which option appeals to you is obviously a very personal choice kind of thing. But for me, absolutely no question: I would go for the “balanced” option. I believe this would give performance that is not miles worse than the more expensive option at less than 2/3 of the cost.
For the Euro comparison: the equivalent Euro price should be all but the same number as the US$ price if you factor in 20%VAT vs 12% GST/PST and the 0.92 Euro/US$ exchange rate.
Academic exercise only but interesting for me nonetheless.
You are drastically missing out on PBO undervolting. Having already splashed out a lot for your 3080 you really need to spend a little more and upgrade at least to a 5700X, 5800X or 5800X3D … I promise you won’t regret it.
I am happy with my current performance and do not wish to spend $500 after tax for possible improvements
With my settings with emphasis on graphic quality, my 3080 is running consistently close to 100% so I am not sure changing processors is going to give me a significant improvement
If your 3080 is at 100% you must be making big compromises elsewhere. A 5700X shouldn’t cost much more than $150 dollars, with undervolting at a pinch you could even use the Wraith Prism cooler that came with your 3700. With a 5700 or 5800 you should be able to (almost) max out everything including the LODs and not even worry about KLAX or Kennedy … fps should improve in most scenery for the same reason it does when you look up at the sky - less pressure on mainthread
PS. I upgraded from a 3800 to a 5800 and don’t regret the expense, and that’s just with an rtx3060 pushing out the the graphics (albeit not at 4k TAA).
Depends on your definition of compromises I suppose: one should be careful to assume that everybody’s objectives are the same as one’s own. My objective is great graphic quality at what I consider to be reasonable frame rates. I will just quote what I said in my original post: “I am completely satisfied with this performance and have no desire or intention to upgrade.” Again: I am running 4K at 100% scaling on essentially all Ultra. Terrain level of detail is 300, Object level of detail is 200. Does that constitute a compromise in terms of frame rate? Apparently for you yes. For me, no.
While I get 40 - 50FPS in most of the flying I do and while I get 40+ over New York and while I get around 30FPS with occasional drops down to under 30 in an extremely demanding airport like the aforementioned FSimStudios CYVR AND FSLTL (both known to impact FPS quite a bit), I am totally happy. Because the graphics are simply stunning. And that is what I want.
FOR ME, dropping the quality to get a higher framerate would constitute a compromise. And to have to upgrade my CPU to achieve said increase would be an unacceptable price to pay for something I do not want. Yes, my $500 was for 5800X3D so that was the high end. But even a 5700X costs around Canadian $300 after tax and shipping. And I have great doubts as to the amount of improvement I would get with that with my settings.
The 4K TAA comment is key. Sorry but, seeing as I AM using 4K TAA, my GPU is typically maxed out with the settings I use, so I just cannot see getting a meaningful FPS increase with a slightly better CPU. And as mentioned: I am NOT prepared to compromise on quality.
You’re all going for AMD processors. On paper the 13900K looks superior to any AMD but a lot of people are reporting that the sim runs smoother with the latest AMD. I used ti always have AMD and while I never had a particular problem with their processor I now wanted to switch to Intel.
