Is there a good guide to Intel vs. AMD?

User Support Hub Install, Performance & Graphics
,
64

Because of AMD’s push to actually have improved and evolved beyond Bulldozer and actually able to directly compete with Intel, you can go with either brand and you’re not going to feel like you’re leaving performance on the table.

For each tier of CPU, they trade blows in performance and some are priced lower than their counterpart.

At this point in the game, it really all depends on your budget.

But there is an island of diminishing returns when it comes to CPU tiers.

For the love of everything that is holy… No matter if you’re going Intel or AMD - unless you’re doing actual workloads such as software compiling, video editing/rendering, 3D content creation, fluid simulation etc etc … do not spend $600+ for a CPU if you’re only going to use it for games. A lower tiered CPU is going to deliver the same performance at a much lower cost.

The $800 5950X is not going to perform any better than a $350-400 5600X in games/sims.

At some point, the single-core performance is the limiting factor in CPU capabilities, not how many cores it has. Games still prefer high single-core performance.

65

Yes and no on the single-core performance. It seems to be especially important for MSFS, but this is actually due to a DX11 limitation that uses a main thread with few secondary threads. Once the main thread hits 100%, you’re bottlenecked at the CPU. Hence the “Limited by main thread” message. High single-core performance is most beneficial in this scenario.

I suspect once MSFS moves over to DX12 with more efficient multithreading capability, this will matter less, as the workload is more spread out over multiple cores rather than relying a single main thread.

66

On any game I’ve played thats been marketed moving or adding DX12 would be a performance improvement, the reality is that the expected improvement is not really there.

In some games that give you an option to use either DX11 or 12, the performance of DX11 yields better results and is more stable.

We’ve already seen a pretty significant performance improvement from Asobo directly moving certain processes to other dedicated threads/cores while still in DX11 especially noticing its improvement in glass cockpits.

Me personally, gaining as much as 20-30fps with SU5, proves to me this is more of an optimization issue than it is an API.

Even now, most game developers opt to still use DX11 because not only its what they’re familiar with - most have noticed that there is a marginal - if any - improvement to the games they create.

Even just searching why most developers still use DX11 to this day vs DX12.

Quoting a few posts I saw, taken with a grain of salt:

DX12 was never meant to be a straight replacement for DX11. At least not initially. DX12 is more difficult to develop for as it requires the developer to really know how to use it.

A lot of DX12 games do it through requesting a DX12 render path when they are actually running mostly DX11 code.

Microsoft envisaged that most studios would use DX12 only through use of a third party middleware and use the much easier to develop for DX11 if they still wanted to code up something themselves.

PC gaming will always need a very thick API like DX11, and no doubt Microsoft will continually update it in the future.

DX11 and DX12/Vulkan are designed to solve very different problems.

One should not expect those low level APIs to magically be faster in all scenarios, either. With those the dev does a very large part of what the driver does in DX11 and mistakes cost a lot.

The future is looking bright for DX12. Thanks to asynchronous compute and ray tracing there are more and more incentives for the best devs out there.

If the move to DX12 significantly improves MSFS and allows better/easier optimization for Asobo, thats great for everyone

Personally, I have my doubts.

67

I agree, I’m also skeptical the move to DX12 will be a big performance boost. I’m simply saying that once the move to DX12 happens, it will remove the performance gains from high single-core processors. Instead of being limited to a few threads, it will spread out those threads across multiple cores. Some users might find a performance uplift.

68

(post deleted by author)

69

Agree and you have all the so called “tech gurus” on YouTube slandering Intel Processors.

The difference is minimal. I’ve used both and I’ve stuck with with my i9 11900k and performs great for what I use it for.

70

The 11900k was “slandered” for its premium launch price of $550 with 2 less cores than the previous generation i9 flagship and little performance uplift except for the single-core. That’s actually a big deal, and I’d hardly call that “slander.”

71

No let’s be honest it was slandered. Those are facts which I get but you clearly haven’t seen all the videos and even posts here related to it.

72

Calling it “slander” because you see things differently is pretty much the definition of ridiculous fanboy logic. It was called out for it’s flaws and lack of performance, end of story.

I’m glad you’re happy with this processor, but I wouldn’t be defending this one until the bitter end…

1 Like
73

And I agree with you on your fanboy logic but I’m not defending Intel here, I don’t know enough about the topic to really understand or care for that matter but calling the I9 11900k useless is a bit silly.

Again, for what I use it for solely FS it does the job.

74

By who?
Price has always been the biggest issue with Intel. When it comes to performance though facts speak for themselves. Which sites have slandered Intel?

75

I don’t think anyone calls it useless? It is however slower than the 10900K in most multithreaded workloads. Cinebench R20 -6%, Blender render time +9%, Handbrake (video encoding) framerate -9.5% and so on.

A flagship that is slower than its predecessor is worthy of some criticism.

1 Like
76

Was going to ask this question, did a search, and found this topic. I want a gaming PC solely to play MSFS smoothly. I solely care about performance in MSFS, specifically 4K Ultra maxed out performance. Which of the 4 below CPUs would you get and why?

Debating between intel and AMD, 5950X too expensive for what I want to do with the machine, so it is out.

Intel: 11700kf vs 11900kf?
AMD: 5900 vs 5900X?

11700kf and 5900 are about the same price. 11900kf and 5900X are about the same price.

How are the thermals on the intel vs AMD? Which is harder to cool? What about memory? Probably get 32GB DDR4 3200 Mhz Hyper X or equivalent.

I’m going to pair with RTX 3080 TI.

77

If you are only after the currently best MSFS performance 11900kf. If you want a little bit less performance but want to have 4 more cores and better thermals, go with 5900x. If you want to spend less money on the cpu which you could reinvest in faster ram etc., the decision would be similar for your other two listed cpus. Note. 5900 is a OEM version, where 5800x would be the next lower retail model, with only 8 cores. Best memory is either low latency 3200 sticks or 3666/3800 cl16 sticks. If you spend more money there is even faster ram, but I would not go there.

1 Like