Should I buy a 5090?

User Support Hub Hardware & Peripherals
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So, I started with an old PC and realised it wasn’t enough, built a new one in April this year with a 9800x3d and ran my old 3080ti with a single screen and it was kind of OK but not great so got a 7900xtx based on recommendations here. At that time a 5090 was absurdly priced where I live - about 4000 USD or more. It’s now about 2800 USD so even with the loss I’ll take on selling the 7900xtx I am better off than having bought the 5090 in April.

Then moved to a 3 main screen, and 4 touchscreen setup and now I have some stuttering in busy airports, and I cant set ultra settings.

So, question is should I get the 5090 now? Willing to spend the cash but few doubts

  1. Will the new AMD 10000 series launch soon?
  2. Will the 60 series Nvidia launch soon?
  3. Most important - I have seen major improvement with the SU4 Beta and wondering whether if I wait for a couple of months the optimisation will get even better?
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My plan is/was to trade my 5070Ti for one of the rumored new Super series when they go on sale but that might change based on how SU4 turns out. In any case, I would hold off on a 5090 to see what the Super series brings, perhaps in the new year? Just a thought, cheers!

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I’ve never been limited by d3d, it’s always main thread.

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I think it’s worth more specific tuning and testing before you decide.

For example, currently the Live and AI traffic seems to cause a lot of issues (including stuttering), and Texture resolution has a big impact, so I’d suggest in Settings > Graphics (scroll down under the preset…):

  • Texture Resolution = lower it by 1 or 2 settings
  • Aircraft Traffic Quantity = Off
  • Parked Aircraft Quantity = Off
  • Also lower road and marine traffic by 1 or 2 settings

In setting up the flight, Flight Environment, turn Live and AI traffic off

Try the above and see if stuttering is any better. I believe there is currently an issue when in motion (eg, landing, or taxiing at an airport) where objects coming in to or leaving your LOD radius are loaded and unloaded ungracefully and adding to the stuttering issues (just my guess). And these things will likely improve as Sim Updates progress (at least I hope!)

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You will definitely want to do some performance monitoring in various circumstances before you spend that kind of coin on a card that - to be 100% honest - will be previous-generation in a year or less. At the minimum, open up the DevMode FPS counter and see how different settings affect mainthread and GPU performance: sim traffic on at various settings, or off completely. Changing TLOD and OLOD settings on the ground at various complex airports and in the air in various aircraft. Settings for road and sea traffic, fauna, etc. Get a good idea how the settings affect YOUR system and which ones matter to you.

A lot of us are running the 9800X3D - it’s simply the best gaming CPU right now for almost any game, certainly for the money. And yet this sim is demanding enough that if you crank everything up and push enough simobjects and enough pixels, you can still overwhelm it. In such circumstances, upgrading your GPU will do nothing for overall sim performance, though having more VRAM is never a bad thing.

Personally when I built my system two months ago, I decided to skip the current 50-series and stayed with my 16GB 4070 Ti Super. If some 5070 Ti Super or 5080 Super comes out at a relatively reasonable price with 20GB (or better yet 24!) this winter, I might consider upgrading my GPU simply to avoid bumping into VRAM limits. But even if I had $3K sitting unused in a Fun Money Fund right now, I would not buy a 5090 - I’d wait until the winter and see how things look for putative Super versions.

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Already reduced tex resolution and have aircraft and parked quantity to off, BUT I have BATC injecting traffic thru FSLTL. I like that as it adds to the immersion and realism.

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I guess I’ll [reluctantly] wait then. Thanks

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Thanks. I’ll reluctantly wait.

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Is your frame rate already over 40 and you’re happy with the detail in your graphics? If the answer is yes, then you don’t need it.

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no….the 5090 is just right out highway robbery, i could have gotten one but refused to spend that price point when the 5080 is doing so well at over half the cost…5090 is just a blatant ripoff from nvidia

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The 7900XTX is still a beast when it comes to rasterization performance, even at 4K.
Plus, it has 24GB of VRAM, making it second place (tied with the 4090) behind the 5090 with 32GB of VRAM.
Both rasterization performance and lots of VRAM are exactly what you need for MSFS2024. With the current SU4 Beta 1.16.19.0, it got another performance boost.

With the 7900XTX and the 9800X3D the sim is more likely to be CPU-limited, as mentioned earlier, even though the 9800X3D is already the ideal choice for MSFS2024.

Also, the sources of stuttering in the sim are rarely tied to the GPU. And even with the 5090, you’d still run into those other sources of stuttering.

So, if you’re thinking about getting the 5090 just for the sim, I’d actually advise against it.

However, if you use other software/games that rely on ray tracing or want to use the Tensor and CUDA cores for training or inference of AI models, the 5090 will definitely outperform the 7900XTX in those areas. Plus, you’d get better support for software libraries and a larger community for those use cases.
If none of that applies to you, then stick with the 7900XTX.

One more thing:
You mentioned using 3 main screens and 4 touchscreens. If they’re all connected to the same GPU and maybe have different refresh rates, that could also hurt your framerate stability.
With FreeSync and G-Sync these days, a lot of people underestimate how important it is to have a stable handshake between the CPU, GPU, and the monitor to get smooth performance. Multiple screens with different refresh rates don’t always make this easy.
I used to run the sim with pop-out windows on multiple monitors too, but I’ve since switched to a single 55-inch 4K OLED monitor. After a short adjustment period, I’m really happy with it.

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20-25 at busy airports with the Fenix and stuttering even on less than ultra. Hence the thought.

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My 3 main screens are connected to the 7900xtx. The rest are connected to my integrated GPU.

I use the PC ONLY for flight and golf sim, and golf sim runs fine.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I need to check if it is cpu/gpu limited now. If I am not likely to get better fps no point in spending that kind of money I guess.

From some youtube videos I had seen, I got the impression that the 5090 would just guarantee me 40-60fps in 4K on ultra.

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I’m guessing that the videos you’ve seen were recorded using a single monitor and single GPU setup, and the issues you’re experiencing are probably caused by your configuration with 7 screens and two GPUs.

I’ve noticed for example that my sim-rig handles frame rates that are multiples of 30Hz really well. Even though my screen can do 144Hz, I run it at 120Hz with FreeSync enabled. If I output 120FPS through FreeSync but run the monitors base refresh rate at 144Hz, I get some stuttering. But when I’m at 60FPS or 120FPS with the monitor set to 120Hz, it’s super smooth.

Also, it’s really important that the FPS stays within the lower and upper limits of the monitor’s refresh rate. If it goes above or below that range, it can cause severe stuttering too.

You can see that just having a single monitor properly synchronized is already tricky enough.
Seven monitors? Yeah, that’s definitely a challenge and the 5090 won’t help.

I know it’s a pain, but you could try testing with just one screen (and make sure to completely disconnect the other monitors from the PC) to see how the performance behaves. That’ll give you a baseline to compare when you start adding screens back in, one by one.

Assuming there aren’t any other system issues (good cooling, BIOS and OS settings all good, drivers are fine, etc.), your 7900XTX should have no trouble keeping 30FPS natively on a single 4K screen, even in the toughest situations, and should easily hit native 60FPS or more when flying.

Of course you don’t want to struggle with 20 to 25FPS, but in my opinion it doesn’t really make sense to chase high native framerates, a stable native framerate is the key to a smooth simming experience.
For me, this setup has worked out to be the ideal one:
In-sim frame cap set to 30FPS with frame generation to 60FPS
Additional Lossless Scaling frame gen to bump the 60FPS to 120FPS (to match the 120Hz of my screen)

For the AMD 7000 series, I’d also recommend:
Displacement Mapping: Off
Raytraced Shadows: Off
Volumetric Clouds: High (not Ultra)
(The 5090 handles those better, but at least for me the visual quality difference was hardly noticeable.)

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Hi Guys,

Don’t know much but I got a chance to buy a 5090FE at about 500 dollars less than the next cheapest one which is a Zotac. I get 5 year warranty with the Zotac and 3 with the FE.

Other than the warranty, is there any downside to getting a FE?

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Guys, I succumbed. Got a 5090FE at MSRP [of my location] and ordered it. Any downside to an FE over AIB cards other than a shorter warranty? Where I live you get 5 years with Zotac.

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Interesting that you went for the RTX 5090. Right now, NVIDIA’s drivers for those cards are a total mess, especially in MSFS. I decided to sit out the 50XX generation myself.

FE version is the base / reference model, basically the default one designed by NVIDIA.
GPUs from other brands, like Gigabyte for example, usually come factory overclocked and often feature better cooling solutions compared to the FE cards.

And about someone saying the RTX 4090 and 7900 XTX are on the same level - nah, not really. When it comes to pure gaming performance, 4090 still wins hands down. No way I’d call that a tie.

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Drivers are a hot mess for 50 series? What’s wrong? 5080 here and no issues so far

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AIB cards usually are factory overclocked and therefore (sometimes substantially) faster than the FE. I have the Zotac amp extreme infinity - and besides the better warranty it is also considerably faster than a FE. Another cool thing about the Zotac is, it can be switched by SW between a performance and a silent profile (in silent it is considerably more silent as an FE but still as fast as a FE) —> AIB cards also usually have better or more silent cooling.

At the bottom line, I am not so sure if it was a smart decision to by a FE (beside it was the only MSRP option of course)