Would I see much performance increase if I upgrade from an i5-2500 to i7-3770 CPU?

I have a Geforce 1060 GPU and 32GB RAM. The only thing that’s subpar is the i5-2500 CPU that’s currently installed. I was still accepted as a tester, so the CPU isn’t that much slower than minimum specs, but the sim lags quite a bit at JFK Airport. My motherboard supports CPUs up to i7-3770K, but a vanilla i7-3770 is a better value. Would I likely see much performance increase if I upgrade the CPU? I’m looking into a completely new high-end system (eventually), but not for awhile.

This is a side-by-side comparison of the i5-2500 and i7-3770 CPUs:

What motherboard do you have?

I have an i5-2400 and just bought a Ryzen 5 3600. Should have it together by next week, so I can report back. I’m seeing my CPU currently really bottleneck my GPU’s performance so this should help I hope.

An Asus P8P67

i5-2500 and i7-3770 both have 4 cores, but i7 has more threads. Not sure how much improvement this can get. Some for sure, but would it be enough to justify upgrade? What cost are we talking about? I definitely wouldn’t spent $100 or more on this upgrade, but if you can find used i7 for under $50 it might make sense

In my P3D and XP 10 days, I was using an Nvidia 660Ti card and an i7-3770K. Due to the appearance of XP in version 11 I had to make the decision to improve one of the two and I bought a GTX 1080 and kept the Core i7. Now with the FS2020 I thought about changing to an i7-9700 but the truth is that I still have not decided because the simulator has not given me problems. I run it in Ultra and the jumps are minimal at the beginning of a flight with a lot of detail but it normalizes immediately.
There is an application (CPU-Z) which allows you to see how much you can grow your PC depending on the motherboard.
Regards

I’m back with a Ryzen 5 3600. Massive improvement from my i5-2400. Night and day. Before it was playable, but stuttery when loading new scenery in and I’d get micro stutters frequently, on medium settings. Now after the upgrade, I am playing on high and it is SMOOTH!

What motherboard+CPU combo do you believe is the best value, and something that will provide the horsepower that MSFS needs, without breaking the bank? I’m gonna hang tight and see what kind of optimizations the patches provide, but I’m considering whether I want to upgrade just the CPU/Mobo/RAM (price of a gaming console), or build/buy a new audio workstation/gaming PC from the ground up.

And, if I upgrade CPU/Mobo/RAM, will Windows and my installed software still work (aside from some product licenses having to be deactivated & reactivated)?

Well, this is not 100% hitting the topic, but it´s more or less in the same direction.
I hope you can help me with you experiance so far with MSFS and system components.

My system is:

i5-2500K (base - not overclocked)
32GB DDR3-1600 RAM
Asus P8P67 rev. 3
RTX 2070 super

I know that the CPU is the bottleneck in this system, so I´m thinking about different options.

  1. Change the CPU to the upper mentioned i7-3770 (used)
  2. Overclocking the i5-2500k to 4,5 GHz (which was reported to run as stable for a daily use)
    → herefor I would “only” buy an additional watercooling system for a few bugs.

For the time beeing, I do not want to invest too much money into a new system, that´s why I´m looking for this, to least get MSFS run more or less stabel.

I appreciate you recomondations.

You will need to reinstall all software starting with Windows 10 if you change motherboard/CPU because it won’t boot. Note if you currently have OEM license or Retail. OEM license cannot be transferred to a new computer, although key might still work and there is a chance it might activate, but I wouldn’t count on it.

My system is identical, except for a Geforce GTX 1060 with 6GB RAM, and the game is installed on SSD. I’m getting 20 fps with lots of stutter (on Medium and Low), and using cable internet. The alpha seemed a lot quicker (and I heard that other people have reported that the alpha ran better than the retail release, on older CPUs). But I also heard it’s an issue that the developers are aware of, and are planning on addressing with an upcoming update.

Thank you for your reply! Of course my system and sim are on a SSD as well :slight_smile:
I had the same FPS, but I turned of the V-Sync, which gave me a boost by 10-13 FSP, of course with lots of stutters etc., but I just compared it with V-Sync and without (same situation, sitting in an A320 at a Gate).
With V-Sync it was about 20-22 FPS and turned off about 32-35 FPS with some drops when looking around in the Cockpit.

Good news that they are aware of it, so let´s hope the best :+1:t2:

keep in mind though, the 2xxx series intel CPU’s were released in 2011 (9 year old tech), and are running on a 32nm process.

the 3xxx series were released in 2012 (8 year old tech), and is running on a 22nm process.

Intel has been using 14nm for years now (I think they’re up to 14nm ++++ by now), and AMD is down to 7nm with the 3000 range of their CPU’s.

There’s more to it than raw GHz. Anyone looking to upgrade (and not spend too much money), take a look at a Ryzen 5 3600, paired with a cheap-ish B450 motherboard. It’s a cheap option, with a LOT of bang for your buck.

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Wrong. I just replaced my CPU (but not motherboard) and oem windows license is working.

I replaced motherboard and CPU on wifes computer and the only thing I had to do was provide a new license (but everything is working even with windows unlicensed). I think you can also use the phone activation option to reset your license in some cases.

However: FS2020 dont seem to play nicely with HT so I wouldnt spend any money on the upgrade to old i7.

Good idea, but let do some math on this thought.

“Cheapish” B450 around 60 EUR
Ryzen 5 3600 around 175 EUR
DDR4 32GB-Kit around 100 EUR

Even if you get some components cheaper than now listed, lets say all together will be like 300 EUR, which is really not bad to get a more modern system, but compared to just overclock the current CPU added by a water cooling system for about 50 EUR…well, that´s a huge difference.
I´m planning to upgrade my system anyway, but not at the moment and if so I don´t want to just spend some money on something, you know :wink:
As you see my last “core-system” worked now for about 10 years, which was a good invest.

I’m surprised. I guess they changed it with Windows 10 or maybe even earlier. Last time I upgraded motherboard while running Windows XP, and it didn’t even boot.

Yep they really made it simple for Win10. It even started in a special mode to install missing drivers (win 10 has the entire installation media bundled on hard drive) and booted up with gfx sound and everything working, even the new wifi card just worked off the bat.

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I’ve just changed my 3570k to 3770k and the extra 4 threads have made a difference, it seems only 4 cores significantly holds the sim back.

Both cpu’s we’re overclocked at 4.4 ghz and I upgrade gpu to 1660ti and added extra ram to take it to 24gb which also made a difference even if it only runs at 1600 MHz, I also only run sim at 1080p. I probably spent c£450 on another ssd, ram, gpu and cpu but more than happy with how the sim runs at moment, I’m probably easily impressed since I was still playing fsx prior to launch!

I only really fly ga planes and run sim on a mixture of med/ high settings but upgrade to 3770k makes a difference particularly if overclocked. It might be worth checking your mobo compatibility first.

I totally get the point on the value of cheap upgrades to Ryzen/mobo/ram but I looked at it that ddr3 ram and 3770k still hold their 2nd hand value at the moment so might get some money back when I eventually upgrade and want to wait and see how sim develops over next 12 months and also the effect of payware on hardware requirements then I’ll probably go for best cpu etc I can afford.

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