I plan to build a new MSFS Sim-PC. I think with the RTX4080/4090 being available or in case of the 4080 being available shortly, it’s worth a little Brainstorming. Since Technology moves forward all the time, I am struggling with a “Top-of-the-line” or a “pretty-decent” Sim-PC that I would exchange in a few years again.
Of course, there is variability in what exactly RAM timing & latency it will be and other details like the Power supply or the Mainboard Vendor/Version. I got the bequiet! Dark Base PRO 900 case already to be flexible. SSD will be the newest 990 Pro and may be two other ones and a large HDD for other stuff. Budget is not really limited, but the question would be if (1) would be sooo much better than (2)? I have a 49" Display with 5120x1440 resolution and do not expect to use VR soon. DLSS is not important as Avionics need to be glass clear. The PC use will be only Flight simulation with Ultra+ settings. But the settings do not need to be “super-ultra-on-the-edge”.
What do you think? I would not like to end up paying 2x for 20% performance. Or do you have a completely different idea?
16gb 4080 will be way more than enough just wait till prices drop, thats what I’d get although I never used more than 8-9 GB vram anyway on ultra with my 1440 monitor.
Get the 4090 because available VRAM is demonstrated to be one of the relevant variables for MSFS, specially if you go on 4K resolutions. I don´t think this is going to change in the future. Also the 4080 only has a 256bits memory interface (amazing design choice by the way…) while the 4090 has a 384bits one.
About CPU I have a 12900ks and it´s barely used. So a 13th series will be also fine. You won´t have problems with any of those CPUs because they can handle workload very well.
I’ve just bought the equivilent of the “Top of the line PC” you’ve mentioned but with an Asus Z790 Gaming Wifi motherboard and 32G Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 5600 MHz memory. It’s a lot of dosh, I’ve spent over €4000 euros.
My feeling is if you are buying an RTX 4090, you really need to go all in, to avoid your subsystems bottlenecking your GPU. That means an Intel 13900K or on the AMD side a Ryzon 7950X is a minimum but the rest of the system like memory and SSD has to be up to snuff as well, especially for gaming. That means high performing DDR5 memory and M2 NVMe SSD storage.
There are other options at the high end on the AMD side would be to wait for a Zen 4 Ryzen 7800X3D/7950X3D CPUs and RDNA 3 GPUs coming early 2023.
For me the second “pretty-decent” PC would be a radically different approach. I would be building that system much more conservatively if that was the option I was chosing, but it would limit you to an Intel Z790 motherboard becuase I would want to be able achieve the “Top of the line PC” performance with future upgrades.
So to spec up a “Pretty Decent PC” I would choose… (targetting around €2500 euros)
Intel Core i7-13700K
Z790 Asus Gaming Wifi
32GB DDR4 3200MHz RAM
NVIDIA RTX 4070
The GPU is obviously a contentous option but I think rather than buying an RTX 3080 now I would hold out for a RTX 4070 or possibly a Ryzen GPU. I like Asus so I would stick with the Z790, AORUS Master is good too and both come with Wifi 6E which could be good for standalone VR like the Quest Pro with Virtual Desktop - you can use the extra bandwidth to change the bit rate to reduce the compression and artifacting - Guy Godin goes into quite a bit of detail in his forum posts but it’s not something I’ve seen people experiement with, but I’m not aware of any Wifi 6E headsets other than the Quest Pro. With the Z790 motherboard you’re not tied to more expensive DDR5 RAM and it gives you more M.2 storage options.
So to sum up, you have option 1 or 2 but for me this is heavily budget dependent, option 3 doesn’t exist because you are wasting the talents of the 4090 if don’t chose that and if you don’t then why build a high performance system with a less optimal GPU.
Yeap, I was surprised too. I was thinking to get 4080 if prizes continue increasing but once I saw that I instantly pointed to the 4090 instead, so I will wait for it. Unless an eventual 4080Ti changes the base specs that card would be a no go for me.
If price is not an object, just get the top of the line.
I would love one too, but cannot justify it for another ~2 years since I bought something last year.
I bought a Lenovo Legion gaming laptop earlier last year at not a good time during shortages, where only way to reliably get a desktop with 3080 or 3090 was Alienware, so took a hard pass and went the cheaper laptop route. My Legion was top of the line 7i Gen 6, so it has the 16 GB 3080, so that was probably not a bad choice at the time.
Go for the higher VRAM if you want this to last a while.
What i don’t get is just for gaming why do people choose these monster 16+ core CPUs? For amd side atleast a couple of reliable source of review has shown the 7700x to be faster for gaming than the 7950x. And it’s not like msfs can actually use even all 8 cores to the fullest, when it’s cpu bound, it’s bound by the main thread, which happens to be using only one core, and this shows in the task manager. One core gets 100% usage while other gets 50-70% usage at max. So what’s the point of having more cores for MSFS unless one is doing some core heavy productivity tasks also?
Edit: i think one case where it might help is the larger cache size in the 16core systems, but for that I would rather wait for the x3d version of the 8core model if on and.
Try to have the more vram as you can, i know from experience, the Achilles heel of my rtx 3080 10gig. That’s if you plan to use 4k ultra with all bells and whistles and heavy 3rd party airports like klax, egll, ebbr etc.
I’m running perfectly on Ultra on I9-11900, 3080 Ti, 1440 Monitor and a solid 60 FPS. The 3080 Ti can do much better but my monitor is only 1440 and 60hz.
So, you can save a lot of money using a little older hardware instead of top of the line. But, if you have the money to spend and want to future proof your system, by all means go for it.
My main monitor is 1440 and only 32 inches. I don’t think I will notice a big difference going to 4K on such a small monitor. Maybe sometime later I will upgrade my monitor to 4K 120hz and at least 42 inches, and then that is when I will probably see my 3080 Ti struggle.
It´s not only the resolution (above 1440p you notice the extra load) but also how game uses scenery caching feature after SU10. Now it turns into a high VRAM usage and it´s even worse under DX12, so the more detailed the scenery and the larger the viewdistance the higher VRAM usage is going to be.
I´m close to the 12GB usage with my 3080Ti just under 3840x1600 resolution (no not a full 4k), and that´s only with TLOD 200, so for me a VRAM increase in the card is relevant and that makes the 4090 an option to consider.
Great comments, yes, me too, but next year for all the dust to settle on all the new stuff. Figure 3500+ USD for one. Have watched prices too, and could build my own, not sure I will save anything much enough to justify not just having someone build one, and then have warranty. I am working with Computer upgrade King on Amzn since they built this laptop and have had top of the line results with it. MSFS did cause me to change cooling fans, as game really spins them up. Techtesters on YT, has excellent review of the 4090, and Intel I-9-13900 CPU, she recommends you make sure your case has a lot of space for larger fans/radiator because of heat. That is biggest concern for me. Too much heat.
Excellent choice kept the links, and BH is a great place to purchase. Bought lots of Nikon Camera Gear from them, excellent customer service. Investigating case’s Jaytwocents has some good recommendations, as well as Techtesters as well. Priced the ASUS ROG Z790 board, now MB prices are these - ROG STRIX Z790-E GAMING WIFI | ROG Strix | Gaming Motherboards｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG USA (asus.com) - So got to add in that cost as well, memory, 4090 Strix Card, fans, liquid cooling, At least two 1-2 TB Nv Drives, most likely Samsung, rated best recently.
It’s been almost 15 years since built a PC. Everything has changed and so like starting over. Thank you for the information.
The 7950x has better binning than the 7700x, usually allowing higher boosting at slightly lower voltage. However, the two CCDs on the 7950x versus one CCD on the 7700x can introduce a latency penalty in some games, slightly reducing performance in some games.
There is a benefit of going with a 7950x for MSFS with theoretical higher single-core boosting, but I would agree that it’s largely overkill for gaming.
I own the dark pro v1 ( with the silents fans ). Two things: strange PSU holder and the top vents are worst for airflow. You need in each case to fill-up all exising fan-slots and not use the very-slow-default-speed, and also then I play usually with the opened case-door.
The v2 have much faster ( and louder fans ) and some additional useless gimmigs like rgb / these phone-charge / some covers (which make may the airflow again worst) , glass door, etc.
I don’t think you need 64GB of RAM - 32 GB should be more than enough for MSFS.
And I read somewhere that using 2 instead of 4 RAM modules will allow for faster timings (don’t quote me on this)
Another point: get yourself a fast (i.e. PCIE-4) M.2 SSD. Speeds up loading and will make the whole system much more responsive.
