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Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support | To Upgrade or Not...

DVA9182
First Officer, CRJ-200

Joined on November 05 2010

Southeastern United States

23 legs, 34.4 hours
17 legs, 27.7 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 17 2018 23:15 ET by Bob Hill

Hello DVA,

I currently run P3D 4.2 on an I7 4790k, single GTX 970, and 8 GB RAM under Win 7 (64 bit). I'm also using (3) 27" displays. Performance is pretty good most of the time with reduced sliders. I experience minor issues with the displays at times, but I figure I'm really extending the GPU's capabilities in these cases.

Anyway, the wife and I were browsing at Best Buy yesterday when I came across a gaming PC they had on display. It was an an 8700k (liquid-cooled), with a 1080 GPU, 16 GB RAM, and a few bells and whistles that my home-built didn't have. The wife egged me on to get it as a Fathers Day gift but I resisted until I could do a little research.

If I do decide to upgrade, I'm not sure whether I will just buy a pre-built unit or swap parts on my current system, but either will require an investment that I don't feel the need to make UNLESS the performance increase is worth it. Therefore, I'm reaching out to the community and those who have been in a similar circumstance for their experience / opinions.

As far as add-ons go, I use Active Sky and Ultimate Traffic most every flight. I also have most of the ORBX NA scenery active along with a couple of their airports. For GA I mostly fly the default options and for DVA flights I use either the Aerosoft or Virtualcol CRJs.

If more information is required, please let me know.

Thank you in advance!
Bob

Bob Hill

First Officer, CRJ-200

DVA3220
Captain, B737-800
OLP

Joined on May 19 2006
DVA Five-Year Anniversary
B737 50 Club

Southeastern United States

78 legs, 129.9 hours
73 legs, 122.3 hours online
76 legs, 127.3 hours ACARS
31 legs, 57.3 hours event

Posted onPost created on June 18 2018 00:15 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Hey Bob:

Interesting that you ask this question. I have a relatively similar system, and recently did some experimenting with upgrades. I have the 4790 and I was using a GTX 970, with 16GB of ram. I bought the 1080 Ti, which is fantastic, but made little difference to P3D. For all for all of the rest of my gaming, my machine runs great. In my opinion, the way to go is to build a new system (or get one that's pre-built). The reason I say this is that, for FS, the name of the game is CPU power. I can turn up the graphics-related settings in P3D and -maybe- get my 1080 working at around 40-50%, but my CPU chokes the performance 100% of the time. On your current system, you can swap out everything but you're never going to get much more out of P3D if you don't work on your CPU (I share your pain). In order to upgrade your CPU, you're going to need a new motherboard which will require new ram (#BecauseIntel), so my opinion is that you're better off starting off with a new computer (whether you build it yourself or buy a prebuilt) and taking it from there.

DVA4917
Assistant Chief Pilot, MD-88

Joined on August 29 2007
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"Welcome to wherever you are..."
Defiance, OH

579 legs, 1,634.1 hours
232 legs, 657.7 hours online
571 legs, 1,622.6 hours ACARS
15 legs, 31.5 hours event

Posted onPost created on June 18 2018 06:45 ET by Tony Stork

^^^ The above is good advice. CPU is king with P3D just as it was with FSX. GPU really won't be much of an issue even with a 970. My 1060 barely seems to notice a load when P3D is running, but my i5-8600k definitely gets a workout.

I upgraded from the i5-6400 to the i5-8600k (both with the same 1060 GPU) and noticed a HUGE performance increase. I can't speak to whether the i7-8700k would be as huge of an upgrade over the 4790k (which is still quite a capable chip as well), but in a simulation where CPU is king it certainly can't hurt.

Tony Stork

Assistant Chief Pilot, MD-88

Posted onPost created on June 18 2018 11:30 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Tony Stork wrote:

GPU really won't be much of an issue even with a 970.

I agree with this. I meant to make a comment that you'd probably be fine with your 970, if you chose to build a new rig, but I got distracted and forgot. Unfortunately, FS is still such a beast for systems that you're still far more likely to run into a CPU bottleneck long before you reach your graphics card's performance limits.

DVA043
Senior Captain, MD-11
OLP

Joined on June 10 2001
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"Col. Panic"
Marietta, GA

2,306 legs, 9,290.0 hours
240 legs, 553.9 hours online
1,964 legs, 8,083.1 hours ACARS
75 legs, 196.3 hours event
2,342 legs, 9,424.9 hours total
91 legs dispatched, 66.4 hours

Posted onPost created on June 18 2018 13:42 ET by Luke Kolin

That depends a fair bit on your screen resolution. At 2560x1440 I can regularly get my 1070 above 90% GPU utilization.

Cheers!

Luke Kolin

Senior Captain, MD-11

DVA9182
First Officer, CRJ-200

Joined on November 05 2010

Southeastern United States

23 legs, 34.4 hours
17 legs, 27.7 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 18 2018 20:32 ET by Bob Hill

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your feedback. Looks like an upgrade is in order and I appreciate your input. I'm leaning towards using my current system as a base and upgrade the required parts, however my wife has offered to front the difference if I buy a pre-built unit. Apparently I'm not fun to be around during the build phase (who knew?).

And so it begins...

Bob Hill

First Officer, CRJ-200

DVA13420
Assistant Chief Pilot, B737-800

Joined on February 25 2018
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Everett 500 Club

Springfield, MO

1,081 legs, 1,880.1 hours
1,080 legs, 1,878.0 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 21 2018 00:54 ET by Adam Magiera

If you haven't overclocked that 4790K you may want to give that a try. I have my 4790K @ 4.4 currently and P3D V4.2 runs very nicely. Just like FSX, P3D is still very much all about using one core predominantly so the higher the clockspeed the more performance. I had a 970 and swapped it out for a 1080 when the 970 began to fail but either gpu works fine.

For reference, my specs are: i7 4790K @ 4.4 GHz; GTX 1080 8 GB; 16 GB RAM; Win 7 Pro 64 bit

Adam Magiera

Assistant Chief Pilot, B737-800

DVA11021
Captain, B757-200
OLP

Joined on September 13 2012
B757 100 Club
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Online Triple Century Club
DVA Five-Year Anniversary

Milford, NH

375 legs, 620.5 hours
365 legs, 604.5 hours online
374 legs, 618.9 hours ACARS
21 legs, 51.4 hours event

Posted onPost created on June 21 2018 07:35 ET by Sean Zarella

Adam Magiera wrote:

If you haven't overclocked that 4790K you may want to give that a try. I have my 4790K @ 4.4 currently and P3D V4.2 runs very nicely. Just like FSX, P3D is still very much all about using one core predominantly so the higher the clockspeed the more performance. I had a 970 and swapped it out for a 1080 when the 970 began to fail but either gpu works fine.

For reference, my specs are: i7 4790K @ 4.4 GHz; GTX 1080 8 GB; 16 GB RAM; Win 7 Pro 64 bit

i have my 4790k to 4.7 ghz 1.3 volts with fluctuating frequency based on use. cooled with an h100i

Sean Zarella (DVA11021)

DVA2887
Senior Captain, A320
OLP, 737-ATP, VFRADV
E-MAIL

Joined on January 30 2006
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Online Eight Century

Charlotte, NC

1,283 legs, 1,792.7 hours
837 legs, 1,044.3 hours online
1,265 legs, 1,770.7 hours ACARS
31 legs, 49.6 hours event
3 legs dispatched, 2.5 hours

Posted onPost created on June 21 2018 08:09 ET by Andrew Vane

Ditto the CPU thing. I saw major increase in performance when i went from i7 2600 2.8Ghz to i3 7350 4.2Ghz. Same 750 video card too. Going to an SSD also helps speed things along.

I'm wondering now if I could actually run P3d v4 even with just 2 cores. confused

Posted onPost created on June 22 2018 00:42 ET by Adam Magiera

Andrew Vane wrote:

I'm wondering now if I could actually run P3d v4 even with just 2 cores.

I imagine it would be fairly difficult, while P3D does run one core really really hard, there is quite a bit of activity in the other cores from addons and things like that. For example, I usually have 100% load on one core and 25-75% on the others when I have the performance monitor open.

Adam Magiera

Assistant Chief Pilot, B737-800

DVA9182
First Officer, CRJ-200

Joined on November 05 2010

Southeastern United States

23 legs, 34.4 hours
17 legs, 27.7 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 10:38 ET by Bob Hill

Okay, so I've still been debating this. The system we saw at Best Buy (yes, not all the components are the best but they don't seem to be "junk" either) is discounted $250 this weekend, so there is a little more pressure to make a quick decision.

I know I didn't mention this before, but my 4790k is currently running stable at 4.6 with decent cooling but not water-cooled. P3D runs off an SSD. Let's say I added water cooling (maybe get it to 4.7) and bring it up to 16 GB RAM. In your opinion, would getting the pre-built (8700k, GTX 1080, 16 GB RAM) still be worth it? The system runs fine in all other respects.

I'm not usually this indecisive, but I don't want to have to upgrade again anytime soon.

Thanks again,
Bob

Bob Hill

First Officer, CRJ-200

DVA9182
First Officer, CRJ-200

Joined on November 05 2010

Southeastern United States

23 legs, 34.4 hours
17 legs, 27.7 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 10:42 ET by Bob Hill

I apologize. When I say "worth it", I mean in terms of a performance boost to P3D.

Bob

Bob Hill

First Officer, CRJ-200

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 11:35 ET by Andrew Vane

I decided to wait on P3d until I eventually upgrade my system. If it ain't broke....

Andrew Vane (DVA2887)

DVA12617
Chief Pilot, A350-900
OLP, VFRADV
DISPATCHER
E-MAIL

Joined on April 23 2015
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"Go Utes!"
Herriman, UT

1,280 legs, 2,967.8 hours
391 legs, 810.3 hours online
1,261 legs, 2,925.6 hours ACARS
25 legs, 78.6 hours event
39 legs dispatched, 174.2 hours

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 13:16 ET by Joe Burner

I’ve heard P3D is worth it but yeah it stinks to have to re purchase some aircraft such as PMDG. I can run FSX pretty decent and I upgraded my processor recently

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 15:47 ET by Adam Magiera

Bob Hill wrote:

Okay, so I've still been debating this. The system we saw at Best Buy (yes, not all the components are the best but they don't seem to be "junk" either) is discounted $250 this weekend, so there is a little more pressure to make a quick decision.

I know I didn't mention this before, but my 4790k is currently running stable at 4.6 with decent cooling but not water-cooled. P3D runs off an SSD. Let's say I added water cooling (maybe get it to 4.7) and bring it up to 16 GB RAM. In your opinion, would getting the pre-built (8700k, GTX 1080, 16 GB RAM) still be worth it? The system runs fine in all other respects.

I'm not usually this indecisive, but I don't want to have to upgrade again anytime soon.

Thanks again,
Bob

I mean the new system will definitely run it well. But a 4790K @4.6 is definitely plenty. You would benefit from the 16 GB of RAM as it would give background processes more overhead to run. If you are running 3 displays the 1080 would be a nice step up from the 970. Like I said, before im running a 4790K @4.4 with 16 GB with a 1080 and have great performance for the most part. If you get that new computer, I would definitely throw in a closed-loop water cooler like a Corsair H110i and OC that 8700K, then you will have a really solid setup.

Adam Magiera

Assistant Chief Pilot, B737-800

DVA7846
Senior Captain, B777-200
OLP

Joined on September 25 2009
US Capital Club
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"It is what it is!"
Wake Forest, NC

569 legs, 1,264.7 hours
399 legs, 805.1 hours online
561 legs, 1,251.4 hours ACARS
105 legs, 243.5 hours event
87 legs dispatched, 175.9 hours

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 16:15 ET by Kevin Hornaday

Bob, I'm running P3D 4.2 on 4770k with a 770. Believe it or not, as long as I'm judicious with a few sliders, my rig runs just fine. That being said, I know an upgrade is coming (maybe next year).

More importantly, if your wife is truly this understanding about your hobby, she's a keeper!

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 19:10 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Bob Hill wrote:

Okay, so I've still been debating this. The system we saw at Best Buy (yes, not all the components are the best but they don't seem to be "junk" either) is discounted $250 this weekend, so there is a little more pressure to make a quick decision.

I know I didn't mention this before, but my 4790k is currently running stable at 4.6 with decent cooling but not water-cooled. P3D runs off an SSD. Let's say I added water cooling (maybe get it to 4.7) and bring it up to 16 GB RAM. In your opinion, would getting the pre-built (8700k, GTX 1080, 16 GB RAM) still be worth it? The system runs fine in all other respects.

I'm not usually this indecisive, but I don't want to have to upgrade again anytime soon.

Thanks again,
Bob

Good question. I don't claim to represent the gamer community at large, so please know that what I have to say is largely just philosophy. You say you're concerned about not wanting to upgrade again. Personally, even though I run 16 GB on my machine, I don't really think it's worth it for just one game, in many cases. Where I benefit from my 16GB is when I'm running a VM and also using the host system for other tasks. I haven't paid much attention to how close FS gets to 8GB, but I doubt you need 16GB. It's nice to have, and if you were building a new system, I'd recommend going with 16GB; however, in my opinion, it wouldn't be worth it to upgrade old memory to 16GB just for P3D. The reason I'd recommend against investing in more memory on your current machine is that your computer is going to want DDR3. The current-gen computers are running DDR4, so you'd be investing in an older technology (DDR3) that's being phased out. Sure, someone could make a very convincing argument that it's a moot point because all technology is obsolete in short order (and I'd probably agree with that argument), but I just don't like to invest in something that's already being phased out.

You can probably do a great job overclocking your 4790k, smack a great water cooling loop on it, and push the frontier of its OC potential -- I won't deny that. My opinion (and it's only an opinion) is that, despite all of that, it's still going to be a 4790k, running on the 2xx chipset. While I'm very interested (but not an expert) in overclocking (and I plan to invest in a K chip on my next build so I can OC), there's an argument to be made that it's a huge investment of time/resources for a fairly marginal performance gain (I hope this doesn't start a huge argument -- I'm just presenting an alternative viewpoint, without trying to fault anyone else's opinion!). I think that the 8700k would give you more longevity in the long run. Sure, there's sources that say P3D still favors 1 core, but I'm still optimistic. They were able to convert FS to 64-bit, which was a huge undertaking. If they can get the engine converted to 64-bit, I'm highly optimistic that improving the core/thread use is somewhere on their development schedule.

Notwithstanding, unless you're building this machine exclusively for P3D, I think the 8700k is a great upgrade for other things. Sure, maybe P3D might not use -everything- the chip has to offer, but I offer this: it's still more chip to be used, and once you get away from P3D, it has a whole lot of performance to offer. With the specs you provided, I would strongly encourage you to do some more research and read the opinions of people a lot smarter than me on the 47xx vs 87xx chips with regard to FS. If you're already OC-ed to 4.7, you -might- not notice as much of a boost by the 8700k (because of its limited use of cores/threads), but I don't want to speak out of my rear network port and mislead you. When I was doing my research on upgrading to the 8700k a few months back, I found numerous articles comparing the 4790k to the 8700k, and several videos on YouTube where people actually managed to get a side-by-side of the same flight using different hardware. I would encourage you to check those out and see if the gains seem worth it to you.

I'm not going to drown you with links -- I'd imagine that if you're savvy enough to OC your CPU, you've probably read a lot of the same sources I've read already, but there's a pretty long thread on AVSIM about your specific question and -- much like here -- there's a lot of different opinions on the matter: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/518903-is-there-any-improvement-to-take-i7-8700k-instead-of-i7-4790k-for-p3d-v4/.

My vote would be to start new and have a more-modern platform to build upon. Even if the performance boost in P3D isn't groundbreaking, I think you may appreciate the boost elsewhere in your computing experience -- and, hopefully, P3D will continue to optimize its use of CPUs and continue to get better on the same hardware. But, in fairness to other people who have expressed other opinions, I think it's just going to come down to what kind've person you are: I don't think this decision is much different than a debate on whether to buy a new(ish) car versus dropping a few bucks on your old car to keep it running. I don't think either way is "right". For what it's worth, I'm in the "just buy a newer car to avoid nickle-and-dime hassles" camp.

In my opinion, you have good storage, a decent graphics card, and a decent CPU. From what I've read and taking your system into context, (after, of course, upgrading to SSD) you're going to see a bigger performance boost from a CPU upgrade than a GPU upgrade. I say this as someone who has the 4790 and went from a 970 to a 1080 Ti. I won't take anything away from my beloved 1080: it's a beast, and it's vastly improved my gaming experience across the board -- except for P3D. Sure, I can turn some sliders up a little bit, but I'm very-much-so choked by my CPU.

Edit: Typo

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 20:34 ET by Adam Magiera

Tyler Devereaux wrote:

Personally, even though I run 16 GB on my machine, I don't really think it's worth it for just one game, in many cases. Where I benefit from my 16GB is when I'm running a VM and also using the host system for other tasks. I haven't paid much attention to how close FS gets to 8GB, but I doubt you need 16GB. It's nice to have, and if you were building a new system, I'd recommend going with 16GB; however, in my opinion, it wouldn't be worth it to upgrade old memory to 16GB just for P3D. The reason I'd recommend against investing in more memory on your current machine is that your computer is going to want DDR3. The current-gen computers are running DDR4, so you'd be investing in an older technology (DDR3) that's being phased out. Sure, someone could make a very convincing argument that it's a moot point because all technology is obsolete in short order (and I'd probably agree with that argument), but I just don't like to invest in something that's already being phased out.

I do agree that putting money into older DDR3 RAM may not be the best investment, but 8GB just isn't cutting it in the high end game realm much anymore. On the Flight Simulator front, with all of my addons going and everything in P3D V4.2 as we speak, I just checked and my system-wide RAM usage is 8.9GB, so there would definitely be problems if I was only running 8 GB on this system.

Adam Magiera

Assistant Chief Pilot, B737-800

Posted onPost created on June 24 2018 20:50 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Adam Magiera wrote:

I do agree that putting money into older DDR3 RAM may not be the best investment, but 8GB just isn't cutting it in the high end game realm much anymore. On the Flight Simulator front, with all of my addons going and everything in P3D V4.2 as we speak, I just checked and my system-wide RAM usage is 8.9GB, so there would definitely be problems if I was only running 8 GB on this system.

Interesting perspective. Well, there you have it I guess. I still stand by my comments regarding investing in obsolete technology, though. If you're running okay on 8GB now, I still think I'd recommend that you wait until you're on a DDR4 platform before investing in the memory.

DVA613
Senior Captain, B727-200
OLP, VFRADV

Joined on June 17 2002
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Charlotte, NC USA

2,469 legs, 3,973.9 hours
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2,103 legs, 3,136.2 hours ACARS
130 legs, 238.7 hours event
165 legs dispatched, 103.9 hours

Posted onPost created on June 25 2018 10:31 ET by David Keech

Folks, just a word about P3D v 4.2. I have an older i5-3570k OC'd to 4.2 ghz on a Corsair H100i AIO. Chip rarely gets over 50C when running P3d and idles around 35c in the summer. v4.2 uses all cores, not just one, but a little addition called affinity mask will ensure the workload is spread out among all cores and if you have HT enabled, those too. More can be seen here (http://www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk/affinitymask.aspx?SubMenuItem=utilties). My system has 4 cores and I've watched the activity during a flight and can confirm, all 4 cores are being used. I switch over to FSX and Core 0 is the only one being used. I have a GTX 960 and though I do not have everything to the right, I get decent frames. Clouds do kill my system though. REX has some amazing ones, but if I'm in overcast, you can tell. Throw in traffic as well and it dips some more. Be careful of the 8700x series of chips. They are hot by nature. I read somewhere that intel didn't use enough paste on the chip and deliding is the only fix.

I will likely start looking for a new system soon. but the miners have jacked the rate for video cards and RAM to the point, it's best to wait them out. My .02 cents.

David Keech (DVA613)

DVA9182
First Officer, CRJ-200

Joined on November 05 2010

Southeastern United States

23 legs, 34.4 hours
17 legs, 27.7 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 25 2018 20:19 ET by Bob Hill

I would like to thank everyone who for sticking with me during this process and chipping-in with their experience, opinions, and suggestions. I appreciate it very much.

After some careful thought (and much insistence on the part of my spouse), I ended up purchasing the pre-built system - and iBuyPower Trace 941. For the money, I believe I have a system that will hold me over for the next few years at the least. I'm excited to see how P3D will perform, however it will be a few days before I will have everything loaded and ready to go.

Still lots of research to do on how get the best performance of of these components, but for me, that is an enjoyable part of the journey. Thanks again!

Bob

Bob Hill

First Officer, CRJ-200

Posted onPost created on June 26 2018 16:09 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Congrats!

DVA4614
Captain, CRJ-200

Joined on February 25 2007
Stage 1 Jet Century Club
Century Club
DVA Fifteen-Year Anniversary

Madison Heights, MI USA

150 legs, 302.0 hours
3 legs, 4.2 hours online
135 legs, 276.1 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 27 2018 18:49 ET by Peter Tambornini

Enjoy it! So fun getting a new rig up and running.

Peter Tambornini

Captain, CRJ-200

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