Yes it gets bottlenecked on 1080p with Medium settings, but it’s clear from the benchmarks that using Ultra settings on any resolution >= 1080p is definitely GPU bound. I interpret that we can achieve 4k 60fps with the next-gen GPUs without hitting the CPU bottleneck.
The CPU load is something that I believe the devs are working on as we speak, it’s a question of optimizing the code for all the sub-systems running in the sim (weather, flight models, AI, ATC, etc.) but it’s not the problem in the sim for now (at least for those of us not having any game-breaking issues).
The sim runs adequately well with High settings at QHD on my GTX1070 with a 7700k running at 5GHz. I’m getting between 30-40 FPS depending on the flight scenario. CPU load during flight is around 50% spread nicely on all 8 threads, GPU is pegged at 100% which is expected.
He’s just stating that turning on HT should not effect the overclock that was applied, not that CPU’s are not effecting by overclocking 
In the Hardware Unboxed benchmark the minimum framerates hardly change when going from 1080p to 1440p to 4K.
Those are the most important numbers to look at from a user experience perspective and it just screams CPU bottleneck.
This explains alot, my processor is a 4-Core 4-Thread processor so I probably will never be able to run it without upgrading my CPU. It really still doesn’t explain why they can’t somehow offload some of the load from the CPU to the GPU that is just sitting there basically idle. The is the first modern game I’ve seen bottleneck at the CPU and not the GPU. My concern is spending even more money after bad. I’ve seen people with processors much bigger than mine still pegged out at 100%.
Just a small update, someone wrote to me to tell me about V-SYNC so I tried putting it on but reducing it to 30. Despite the system suggesting high end I set it to medium and now things are very smooth and the CPU is at 70% while GPU 50%
Will leave it like that for a while, 5 flight done today.
regards
Doug
You guys are geniuses!!! I went into the bios and enabled hyperthreading, which had been disabled originally by JetLine Systems to make P3D run more smoothly. Instantly that fixed my problem with MSFS2020. I just took off from JFK in the A320, something impossible earlier today. Very smooth and enjoyable! Once this Covid episode is over and you guys are anywhere near Huntington, WV, I’ll happily buy you a steak dinner. I really really really appreciate your expertise and help!!!
My Specs:
Motherboard: Asus Rog Z390 Gaming
CPU: Intel i7-9700K
GPU: MSI GeForce RTX 2080ti
Asus Rog Z390 E Gaming Mobo
CPU-Cooler: Liquid cooled 240mm
PSU: Corsair RM850x 800 Gold
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4/3200mhz
M.2 NVME SSD: 1TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus
SSD: NVME Samsung 970 EVO 500GB
5.1 sound system Soundblaster.
Next level V3 Motion platform
2 Buttkickers on race rig with 300watt earthquake amp…
Valve Index. VR HP Reverb G2 on order.
Sim Racing studio wind and tactile generators.
Alpha Honeycomb flight controls and Thrustmaster rudders.
Absolute slideshow here. On high end settings fraps shows30 to 40 fps but the scenery jerks along terribly. This is also causing lag in the controls. I can go to lowend settings with no improvement. Thats puzzliling. In P3 you know in my index VR highest settings holding 90fps steady so I dont think it`s my rig. Hope we get some ideas soon.
Well if our enjoyment of the sim and its performance is based on how many other people are using it at a given time, then I don’t see a very promising future, particularly whenever something big is going on in the community (like cross the pond)
Lucky you! Great it helped. So seems Asobo should revisit minimum requirements and say FS will not run smoothly (I mean not high fps, but a low, but stable) on 4 core+4 thread CPUs.
Great to hear man, have fun playing the game instead of having to be miserable in here with us. I really am happy for you, that’s awesome. Enjoy.
Fortunately, your 6700K does support HT. It has 4 cores, but can run 8 threads with HT on.
Normally, if a CPU is capable of supporting HT it will already be “on” by default in the motherboard BIOS when the computer is first assembled, but that is not 100 percent guaranteed. It depends on who built it, and did the initial setup.
Here is a quick way to check if HT is on.
Press CTL-ALT-DELETE, which will bring up a blue screen with several options. Click on “Task Manager”
When the task manager window comes up, maximize it to fill the whole screen. Click on the tab marked “Performance”.
This will bring up a list of various hardware on your computer. “CPU” should be the first item listed, and on this screen it will show the current overall CPU load, and current clock speed.
Click on “CPU” to highlight it (if it is not already), and then click on “Open Resource Monitor” which should be at the lower left part of the screen.
This will bring up a new window. After a few moments a series of green graphs will appear at the right side of the screen. These show the performance and load of each individual CPU core. If HT is off, this window will show four cores numbered “CPU 0” through “CPU 3”.
If it shows 8 cores, numbered CPU 0 through CPU 7, then that means HT is already enabled. Unfortunately, if this is the case, then the “fix” that worked for me, will not be the answer for you.
If, however it only shows 4 discrete cores, then HT is off, which means there may be hope that my solution will work for you.
HT is enabled by going into the motherboard BIOS setup menu. I can’t give you hard and fast instructions on how to do that, as it depends on the specific motherboard you have.
The BIOS menu is normally accessed by hitting a certain key when the computer is first started. I have an ASUS motherboard, and it briefly flashes an ASUS logo before Windows itself starts to load. I access the BIOS menu by repeatedly hitting the DELETE or F2 key when the logo appears.
Once in the BIOS, you will have to look for the HT setting. It will usually be under a heading relating to CPU options. If you have the manual for you motherboard, that should give info on where to find the HT on/off option.
After setting it to “on” you would have to find the menu setting to “save changes and exit”. After doing that, let the computer boot into Windows as usual. It would probably be a good idea to go back to the Task Manger after making the change to insure that it now shows 8 discrete cores instead of 4.
the sim runs pretty smooth when bush flying in small planes (60-80FPS). I get miserable performance in jets and airliners though (cockpit view. external is fine). 10-30I would say, depending on the aircraft. Changing the graphic settings doesn’t really have an impact on that. my cpu and gpu both aren’t maxed out, actually most of the time they are below 50% usage. Clock speeds of the gpu show that it actually doesn’t do ■■■■ while in cockpit view.
my specs:
1080p
rtx 2080
ryzen 5 2600
32gb of 3000mhz Ram
vsync off, gsync on (also enabled for windowed applications)
it’s quite annoying…
Another update for you. Someone wrote to me explaining the effect of using and not using V-SYNC as a result I turned it back on set it to 30 and set the main setting to medium. The setup had recommended high end but decided to go lower. I have now had a good day 5 flights done and tutorials also all running very well. Now my CPU is at about 75% and GPU 50ish %. With V-SYNC off the GPU was at 98% in the menu’s !!!
If it stays like that it will be fine until next years upgrade.
Hope you can settle your system down.
regards
Doug
Your advice was fantastic and so right, my GPU was running 95-98% even in the menus. So I tried setting the setting the medium and setting V-SYNC to 20 then later 30. The system seems to be running very well now much better than yesterday. I did several of the tutorials and 5 VFR flights today. Lets hope it stay like this or gets better. CPU no at 75% and GPU 50ish.
Will do CPU/Mem upgrade next year.
Many thanks for your input.
Doug
Yes, it’s not a guaranteed solution. I have seen users reporting problems with a 9900K CPU, which has 8 physical cores, and can support 16 cores with HT. There are probably several factors at play. I do wonder if the current bug causing the sim to bog down when programs try to access the sim through simconnect is related to the excessive CPU load.
Gotcha 
According to true experts in this thread – and confirmed by my own experience following their advice this morning – make sure hyperthreading is turned ON in your bios. From the very high end nature of your computer system, I’m guessing it was built to run P3D as smoothly as possible – which means hyperthreading was deliberately turned OFF (because P3D ran best with hyperthreading turned off). Turn hyperthreading back on in the bios and your CPU will gain vast “horsepower” for MSFS2020. It definitely worked for me. My CPU had been pegging 100 almost constantly. Now CPU usage is down to 50-60 range. Stutters are gone. FPS stabilized.
I`ll see if my i7 9700k has hyperthread to turn on and get back to you. Thanks.
My fps drops only in the airliners, does rolling back the driver help as well?
My PC i9-9900K, RTX2080Super, 32gb RAM
Thank you
If you’re CPU bound (which appears to be the case for many here), theoretically you should be able to up your graphics quality a little bit to make use of your now under utilised GPU.