Performance with AMD 5800X and 3070 8GB?

Lenovo keeps cancelling my order for a Legion 7i Gen 6, which is extremely frustrating. I do not know why. Might be able to get a Desktop AMD 5800X liquid cooled with 3070 8GB prebuilt at a reasonable price. Is that a decent machine for MSFS2020?

Will that desktop give at least comparable performance to a Legion 7i Gen 6 laptop in the sim with 11800h and 3800 RTX mobile?

Will that 5800X/3070 desktop be able to max settings at 1080p (other than lens bloom and turn off live traffic) with reasonably smooth performance?

Yes.

You probably will be able to comfortably max out settings at 1440p, too.

4K with a few things dialed down should also be easily attainable.

Great configuration to use and fly with FS2020 … When this software wants to work properly :slight_smile:

Desktop 3070 can be significantly faster than a mobile 3080. Mobile 3000 series performance depends a lot on the specific notebook though, as they have different power levels. But you shouldn’t worry about losing performance with the 3070.

https://technical.city/en/video/GeForce-RTX-3080-mobile-vs-GeForce-RTX-3070

The 5800X is also an upgrade from the mobile CPU.

https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-intel_core_i7_11800h-1959-vs-amd_ryzen_7_5800x-1747

You should have no issues at 1080p nor at 1440p.

I can get a more or less similar system with 3060ti and 16GB RAM for $200 less. Is the full desktop 3070 and 32GB RAM worth the $200 for MSFS 2020? I can afford it if it is.

Getting something with a 3080 from a reliable source would be like another $400 minimum on top of the 3070 for a lousy air cooled CPU that will overheated/throttle (not good for CPU bound game like MSFS) or like a whopping $1000 more for a 3080 with a proper liquid cooled CPU. Waiting for a good 3080 sale will miss the holiday gaming season. The 5800X is liquid cooled with 32GB RAM and RTX 3070 8GB desktop GPU.

Right now I have a 2016/2017 era LAPTOP with 7700hq and GTX 1070 8GB mobile HP Omen 17. Post SU6 can play the game smoothly in 1080p with ultra/maxed settings, but have to leave LOD to 200 and pre-cache to medium, turn off live traffic and lens bloom. It is playable and flyable, but LOTS of popping scenery action. Maxing those settings on my current rig makes it an unplayable slide show. OK with the turning off lens bloom and live traffic, but would like to max pre-cache and get the LOD to 400. 1080p OK - 1440p would be great, but not required.

If going to LOD 400, with the cache then yes, the 32gb is definitely worth $200. The extra ram will greatly reduce all the random stutters that sometimes present themselves.

Though depending on where and what you fly, with the higher LOD the 8gb VRAM on the 3070 can introduce a few stutters. Looking at my VRAM usage in my 6800XT it can sometimes approach 12gb at 1440p ultrawide.

But seeing as the 3080 upgrade costs more for a lesser CPU, I’d stick with the 3070 config and keep the intent on upgrading the graphics card down the line when prices aren’t so silly.

Hmm… in this case, should I just stick with the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 6 laptop? Got it for a reasonably good sale, and wasn’t cancelled this time, but didn’t ship yet and likely won’t for 2-14 days, so I can still cancel if this is not good for my needs.

The Lenovo specs are i7 11800h, RTX 3080 mobile 16 GB GDDR6 165W, 32GB DDR4 3200 RAM, 1TB Gen4 SSD. I could care less about the monitor, as I plan to run it in 1080p on a 4K 27" monitor. I need 40fps for the monitor G-Sync to work properly, so just plan to run in 1080p.

If you plan on running it in 1080p, go for the 3070 PC, you’ll definitely hit the 40fps minimum for gsync/freesync probably even closer to 60. With the reduced resolution also comes less VRAM usage, so it shouldn’t peak over the 8gb it has. The general raw power of the desktop 3070 along with the cooling potential will also allow it to keep more consistent frame rates. Laptops are known for thermal throttling, reducing clock speeds and producing frame spikes, causing more issues than it’ll solve with the greater VRAM if used exclusively for 1080p.
Really unless you require the Sim to be portable, the desktop is usually the better option in most use cases.

Thanks. I think the RTX 3080 mobile is highly dependent on implementation. From what I can tell the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 6 seems to have a particularly high performing implementation of the RTX 3080 mobile. Most 3080 mobile scores are on par with desktop 3060 ti, but that Lenovo seems to score very close to but just under the full desktop 3070 in performance mode - much closer to full desktop 3070 than the 3060 ti.

I don’t really need mobile, but if I purchase something mobile “now”, the “boss” would probably be OK with getting a desktop in a few years (Raptor Lake+, RTX 40X0+, Mature DDR5). If I were to get a desktop “now”, the “boss” would be OK with me getting a laptop in a few years, but not a desktop. I could be wrong, but I really see desktop gaming performance widening the performance gap even more vs. mobile in the next 2 years.

To play the sim how I really want ongoing for many years would probably want a 13700KF, RTX 4080, DDR5 6400 RAM. A reliable system with those specs at a “reasonable” price with bugs worked out (DDR5 latency, Hybrid scheduling, etc.) is at least 2+ years away minimum and no way would it be on a laptop.

Sure, I could get a 12900KF and 3090 in a few months, but that would be well over $4k with brand new unoptimized tech. I’m looking for a stopgap to have fun with the sim for a few more years as the tech matures.

I have tested this exact set up.

It’s actually wasted at 1080p, 1440p minimum to get the benefit of this GPUs power. Should run 60FPS locked everywhere with no issue on hign-end setting. Beware ultra everything: some settings can be cranked with minimal performance hit, others are absolutely performance killers, so a mix of high and ultra is the sweet spot for powerful GPUs.

Thanks. Which settings are absolutely performance hits and which not so much? If you know, which hit the CPU and which hit the GPU?

This post gives more information than I ever could!

Thanks. My intention would be to max/Ultra all the settings at 1080p unless it becomes unplayable, with the exception of lens bloom and live traffic, as I don’t care about those. If I have to dial back anything will be terrain/object LOD, but if I can sustain 400 that would be ideal.

I ended up getting the Lenovo Legion 7i Gen 6 laptop with i7 11800h, RTX 3080 16GB, and 32 GB DDR4 3200 RAM. I’m hoping that would be a notable improvement over my current HP Omen Laptop i7 7700hq, GTX 1070 8 GB, and 16GB DDR4 2400 RAM.

On my current HP I’m able to “tolerate” the sim in 1080p with everything ultra/maxed except for lens bloom and no live traffic, except I have to keep the offscreen cache to medium and LOD to 200 - that kills the framerate if I set either higher. Really hoping the Lenovo will be an improvement there.