You think the software has been optimized? …interesting point of view
Paraphrased from things that the developers and C M s have said over the past year, so their claims, not my own: Please don’t shoot the messenger LOL! It’s not my POV. That said, we hope that they stream data differently for each platform. And hope is not a plan!
So, I think I’ll go with the following:
- ASUS ROG Strix B650E-F GAMING WIFI
- AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D – 16 cores – 5,7 GHz
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER 16GB
- 64GB DDR5 RGB RAM (2x32GB)
- 2TB Kingston Fury Renegade PCIe 4.0 NVMe
- 1000W be quiet! Pure Power 12 M Gold ATX 3.1 Modulair
- DeepCool LS720 SE ARGB 360mm
- Phanteks NV5 Black
A bit over budget though, but I think it’s a nice future proof build.
I would suggest going with the 9800X3D over the 7950X3D. I have the 7950 and it’s a finicky thing to get the most out of. The speed of the 9800 will be just fine for productivity (if that is your main reason for picking the 7950) and will be a lot more straight forward to handle. I wish I had not bought the 7950 as it’s 99% for flight sim but the 9800 was not out when I purchased my system. Looking back I’d probably have been better off with the 7800X3D at the time!
I’d also pick a different motherboard brand. MSI or the Taichi one are better I think.
And check the brand and exact model number of the RAM to make sure it is on the motherboard makers QVL list. And make sure it is a low CAS (30 or 32) with EXPO Profile type.
Actually, AMD motherboards can support EXPO or XMP profiles. Like you said the key is that the exact model number of the RAM is on the motherboard makers QVL list.
I was in exactly the same situation. I missed the $330 7800X3D. I talked about buying it, but didn’t pull the trigger, since I was still more than a month away from my AM4 to AM5 migration. And the 9800X3D wasn’t out when I was ready. So I bought the 7950X3D on sale for $465.
It’s a great CPU, but it definitely needs much more extensive tweaking to get the most out of it for the sim. I’m glad I have the 7950X3D, since I do some Handbrake encoding, which fully loads all 16 cores. If I didn’t need the non-vCores, I’d pick the 9800X3D over the 7950X3D, for sure. I’m running the sim on the eight Vcores only.
I bought XMP RAM and wondered whether I’d made a mistake. Nope, it works perfectly with my CPU/motherboard combo.
Thanks for the replies everyone - I’ll tweak my selection a bit again. Maybe I’ll also wait and see what the RTX 5000 series will do for MSFS. I don’t want to purchase too quickly.
I’d be worried about doing that here. This is a snapshot from in a group flight when it started to struggle.
I am using the Bios Core Flex 3D option, no Process Lasso, no SMT, and rthe sim is clearly using all 16 cores here a lot. If I limited it to half that, surely that cannot be a good thing?
I did some extensive testing @ 1080p with CPU-bottleneck graphics settings, mostly following this video’s recommendations for Process Lasso CPU Assignments and Priorities.
https://youtu.be/VS3AmWLYd7o?si=kPQ8M39pu8tpe8Yx
The author, Savitarax, showed me some very interesting and surprising tips, including setting most Windows processes to Idle Priority, along with spreading out those core assignments on the non-Vcore chiplet.
Even @ 4K I saw some (albeit less) improvement running the sim on the Vcores only. Clearly I’m GPU bottlenecked @ 4K.
I did a lot of testing prior to the above, focusing on these variables (and ended up with these settings.)
Game Mode (OFF)
HAGS (OFF)
Windows Power Plan (Ultimate)
Core Parking (Disabled, using Bitsum Core Park app.)
RBAR (Enabled)
SMT (ON)
In my opinion, Process Lasso is a must for this CPU.
Why are you struggling with this CPU? Wouldn’t it be better to buy the 9800X3D, set the BIOS once without needing to tinker with programs like Process Lasso? Have you thought about switching to the 9800X3D?
I agree. If MSFS/gaming is the main usage, then note that the 7950X3D has 2 chiplets CCD0 and CCD1. CCD0 is the one with the 3D V-cache, so 8 cores can make use of that, not all 16.
Struggling? Hardly.
The 9800X3D wasn’t available when I bought the 7950X3D.
I’m getting great performance with the latter, so I have no desire to swap it out.
Did it require a lot more work to get there? Absolutely. In fact, I was quite dismayed at the lack of improvement I first had compared to my 5800X3D system. Process Lasso (and the other tweak/test/tweak/test/tweak/tests I did) saved the day. Some folks might not have the mindset or patience for the hours and days of testing I did. I kind of enjoy it. Weird, I know.
But I’m very happy now, and the only other hardware upgrade I plan is from the 3090 Ti to a newer GPU. But that’s not going to happen for at least a year.
Sure, I could sell the 7950X3D and buy a 9800X3D, but that juice isn’t worth the squeeze at this point.
Personally, if I was choosing today between the 9800X3D and the 7950X3D I’d still buy the latter CPU, because I use the 16 cores for other CPU-intensive tasks.
Pure gaming? 9800X3D all the way.
Well, I just ordered everything and I think I will be a very happy camper.
I ordered the following:
- Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 16GB - ASUS TUF Gaming
- AMD Ryzen 9 9900X - 12 cores - 5,6GHz
- 64GB DDR5 - Kingston Fury Beast RGB
- ASUS TUF Gaming B650-PLUS WIFI
- 2TB - 7.300MB/s - Kingston Fury Renegade
- 4TB - 7.300MB/s - Kingston Fury Renegade
- DeepCool LS720 SE
- Deepcool CH560 Digital ARGB
- 4x DeepCool ARGB Ventilator
- 1000W be quiet! Pure Power 12M Gold ATX 3.1
The reason I went for the 9900X is that I will not use this PC solely for gaming, but also photo and video editing as my MacBook Pro is beginning to struggle.
I will not be playing in VR in the future. I have tried it, but with my chronic migraines it is not for me. I have a really nice 27" 2K gaming monitor, which I will now have to upgrade to a 4K in the future. After saving up of course.
Once everything is in and I am up and running, I will update you on how it is performing.
Thanks everyone for your insightful comments!
Wow, I am blown away of what my system can do. Did not check the FPS I am getting, but it can handle all aircraft with GSX Pro and handcrafted airports without a single stutter. All settings are on ultra with LOD set to 200.
On 2K it looks and feels a thousand times better than playing on Xbox. Can’t imagine what a 4K monitor will bring me.
The only regret I have is that I took this long to switch to PC…
Once again, thanks everyone! Many safe miles ahead!
That’s not literally true all the time. Windows can cache a file in memory for improved speed - it happens automatically at the OS level and we often never notice it.
So extra RAM is useful for a PC running a large data program, such as a simulator.
For years I have disabled the disk indexing service. It trawls through every file on disk to speed up file searching, that I never use. In reality it drags down the system.
All Startup processes are also disabled. A few services I set to a manual start, rather than automatic which helps.
Check out the music recording sites. Lots of Windows features are permanently disabled to avoid audio time sync problems.
Great machine but I would recommend 9800x3d as suggested.
I just purchased mine with a 5080!
Fair enough.
I’ve found that disk indexing is very useful with minimal overhead however Windows search is the one that trawls through the disk in the background sucking up system resources and slowing down my PC. I merely disable the wsearch service and no more trawling.