Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Need a recommendation on GPU!

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support | Need a recommendation on GPU!

DVA12617
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Posted onPost created on June 16 2019 20:52 ET by Joe Burner

Hey all,

So I upgraded to P3Dv4.4 back in January, I can run P3D4.4 with anywhere between 22-29 FPS locked at 30. I have an AMD RX-8350 8 core processor with AMD Radeon rx460 GPU. I am thinking of updating my GPU to AMD RX590. Does anybody have any suggestions on this or any advice? I can get the GPU for under 300. I don’t want or desire to get NVIDIA as I’ve heard horror stories on installing them. Anyways any help or input would be much appreciated. This is the GPU i am looking at.

https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-Graphics-Windforce-256-Bit-Gv-RX590GAMING-8GD/dp/B07PQJ2S5G/ref=pd_aw_sbs_147_3/144-0928644-6294754?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07PQJ2S5G&pd_rd_r=30c57eda-907a-11e9-a7e6-492036ce858d&pd_rd_w=Djb2q&pd_rd_wg=9AuTx&pf_rd_p=aae79475-6dc9-4a12-80e8-27b63108fa72&pf_rd_r=TZ14G53MF392EWGA0SB1&psc=1&refRID=TZ14G53MF392EWGA0SB1

Thank you,

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

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Posted onPost created on June 17 2019 13:26 ET by Thiago Braga

Joe;
Not big fan of AMDs product, but I would like to suggest MSI: https://www.walmart.com/ip/MSI-nbsp-Radeon-RX-590-ARMOR-8G-OC-Graphics-Card/670648794?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=0&adid=22222222227285048845&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=344413719974&wl4=pla-697544179899&wl5=9011908&wl6=&wl7=&wl8=&wl9=pla&wl10=8175035&wl11=online&wl12=670648794&wl13=&veh=sem&gclid=Cj0KCQjw9JzoBRDjARIsAGcdIDX0rM9G6CrPicPqpTW7UfDV1FXn_CZcPK4LYI9hotUP9ktSsXWje0IaAi91EALw_wcB
Good price.

Thiago Braga (DVA9545)

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Posted onPost created on June 17 2019 13:30 ET by Luke Kolin

Joe Burner wrote:

I don’t want or desire to get NVIDIA as I’ve heard horror stories on installing them.

Out of curiosity, what have you heard? The general comparison between NVIDIA and AMD is that AMD gives you worse or (at best) near equivalent performance at significantly worse power consumption and heat.

Cheers!

Luke Kolin

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Posted onPost created on June 17 2019 13:47 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Hi Joe:

I'm not very familiar with AMDs GPUs, so I can't give any shopping recommendations.

(tl;dr)
The only advice I can offer is that a GPU upgrade may not give you the performance increase in FS that you might be expecting. Forgive me if you already know how FS uses computing resources, but I'd hate to see you or anyone else go drop big money on a GPU specifically for FS performance and be disappointed. I did some very brief searching and discovered that your current card does leave some room for improvement, so I doubt that any modern card would disappoint. A quick benchmark comparison yields that the 590 would be a substantial improvement over your current 460. Objectively, this seems like a great improvement for the price. I would just advise caution if you're upgrading the GPU solely for the purpose of better FS performance. If you use the machine for other games/tasks that could also benefit from the GPU, then great! However, if FS is typically the only task on your computer that uses GPU power, your mileage may vary.

---
My advice is this: if you're not familiar with the interaction between GPU and CPU with regard to overall performance, do yourself a favor and take the time to do some reading. Stats are great on paper, but just because a GPU has a lot of power and may be CAPABLE of performance you desire, your particular environment may not allow your GPU to thrive and achieve its potential greatness. There is such a thing, in my opinion and experience, as having "too much" GPU for your CPU. One could argue that having "extra" GPU power gives you some overhead for a later CPU improvement; however, I would counter that with the logic that you're investing in a <$300 GPU (in a world where you can easily spend more than twice that): you're obviously focusing on a budget-friendly solution, so I would advise you to not overspend on GPU power your CPU can't handle. FS is a very heavy hitter on CPU resources, and it's not uncommon for your CPU to be the limiting factor on overall performance in the sim. If this is the case for you, even if you went and spent a few mortgage payments on 2x of the hallowed NVIDIA 2080 Ti cards configured in SLI (I realize you're not interested in NVIDIA: I'm just making a point), you may only see a very small improvement to your overall sim performance quality. Conversely, other tasks that aren't as taxing on the CPU may yield much more significant performance gains from a GPU upgrade.

Without boring you with my long story and decisions I made against my own better judgment, I have a higher-end GPU paired with a fairly old CPU and it yields very predictable results: my GPU utilization is almost never above 50% (and often not above 35%), no matter how high I set graphics settings. This is because my computer starts getting bogged down by the CPU long before my GPU ever has to yawn itself awake and start working. As a result, most of my GPU's power is just wasted/unused: not the best utilization of my hard-earned money. While I do see gains in other games that aren't as taxing on the CPU, this waste is ESPECIALLY evident in FS. Even I can fine-tune the settings on FS & the GPU driver to maximize every possible utility of my GPU, the end result is that I will still have about 30-40 FPS with 100% CPU utilization and about 30% GPU when things start slowing down. For reference, I have the i7-4790: a processor that's slightly newer than your FX-8350. Feel free to compare CPU benchmarks, but I think you may be in a similar boat to me when it comes to FS performance. The GOOD news, however, is that even if my exact situation happens to you, you will have spent <$300 ... which will be a lot less disappointing than my $1200 investment that didn't pan out

I know this probably isn't the shopping advice you were looking for, but I hope this helps you make a possibly better-informed purchase decision.

Posted onPost created on June 17 2019 13:48 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Luke Kolin wrote:

Joe Burner wrote:

I don’t want or desire to get NVIDIA as I’ve heard horror stories on installing them.

Out of curiosity, what have you heard? The general comparison between NVIDIA and AMD is that AMD gives you worse or (at best) near equivalent performance at significantly worse power consumption and heat.

Cheers!

I also agree with this completely, though I didn't want to spark a Team Red vs Team Green argument.

DVA13608
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Posted onPost created on June 17 2019 22:01 ET by Gerard Beekmans

Just adding my "me too" two cents (1.5 cents USD) to the mix. Our flight sims are CPU heavy, not GPU heavy. And more specifically, single thread heavy. This means that the "trick" of using Hyperthreading which doubles your physical cores to logical cores, is also largely wasted on the Sim. Our Sims simply don't use so-called Ray Tracing which means if you were to spring money on a fancy Nvidia RX card (or AMD's equivalent whatever-it-is-called), you are wasting money unless you're also playing other games that might take advantage of it (one day in the maybe near future).

If you're looking for a single upgrade that will have a decent impact on your Sim performance improvement, get a faster CPU. Now the problem is a newer CPU will undoubtedly require a new motherboard and maybe new RAM too so you're kind of doing the trifecta dance and might throw in a new GPU anyway.

Before this CPU upgrade the single biggest difference was going back from AMD to Intel in general. I am not going to get into a holy debate of Intel vs AMD vs Nvidia but there are solid benchmarks out there that will be illuminating. And as to the nvidia horror stories you have heard; I'd take them with a grain of salt. I have my personal horror stories when dealing with AMD graphics cards. Everybody has their own stories and your mileage will vary. If you get stuck, no matter the vendor you end up deciding on, you have a lot of knowledgeable people here at your disposal that will gladly help out figure out whatever issues plague you. For some of us, myself included, it's part of our day job and careers, so you get the benefit of free tech support vs. paying your local computer store to help you out. smile

Gerard Beekmans

Captain, A320

Posted onPost created on June 17 2019 22:08 ET by Joe Burner

Thank you all for your replies.

Yeah I’m not trying to start an AMD vs NVIDIA topic. So P3D is from what I’ve heard GPU heavy as well as CPU. I have a good processor as is and it runs it fine I’m looking to upgrade the GPU.

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

Posted onPost created on June 18 2019 00:10 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Joe:

I haven't done enough research to agree or disagree with that assertion. However, what I can tell you is that I use P3D, it's my current sim, and it is the sim that my last post was based on. Regardless of whether it uses more GPU, it still quite easily maxes out even some of the most expensive CPUs available on the market today.

Notwithstanding, if you wish to upgrade your GPU, you should upgrade your GPU. It's certainly not a bad thing; my only goal in my first post was to ensure that you didn't invest under false pretenses. As I mentioned previously, the 590 you are considering appears to be a significant improvement over the 460. If you are not already familiar, there is a site userbenchmarks.com that offers a bunch of data and the ability to compare GPUs, among other things. Here is a link to the comparison between the two GPUs you mentioned: https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-RX-460-vs-AMD-RX-590/3641vs4033

Posted onPost created on June 18 2019 23:55 ET by Joe Burner

Tyler,

Thank you. Yes I use that site to compare. The 590 is much better than 460. I also play other games American truck simulator and GTAV as well as P3D

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

Posted onPost created on June 23 2019 18:25 ET by Joe Burner

So update. I bit the bullet and purchased the GPU! Hence why I haven’t logged a flight lately. I am hoping to get it installed and working tomorrow. smile

Thank you everyone for your feedback! Hopefully I can run it successfully!

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

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Posted onPost created on June 24 2019 08:59 ET by Kevin Sullivan

Joe - Please let us know if you see an FPS improvement.

Kevin Sullivan (DVA6761)

Posted onPost created on June 24 2019 10:49 ET by Joe Burner

Kevin,

Will do! It is arriving today. So I’m awaiting for it. Should be here this afternoon. I hope to see a little improvement but as I mentioned I use it for other games as well. The RX460 has been good, but even looking at P3D specs recommendations it mentioned 8gb of GPU. I have 4GB with the RX460.

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

Posted onPost created on June 24 2019 11:25 ET by Tyler Devereaux

Congratulations, Joe! A new GPU is always exciting. I hope you get the improvement you were looking for. Let us know how it goes!

Posted onPost created on June 24 2019 11:28 ET by Joe Burner

Will do. I’m currently looking at my old one about to remove it.

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

Posted onPost created on June 24 2019 12:06 ET by Joe Burner

So Tyler and all, I just discovered this new GPU will be a improvement I think. I was running AMD RX460 2gb OC.

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

Posted onPost created on June 24 2019 13:04 ET by Tyler Devereaux

That's great news. Glad everything worked out in your favor.

Posted onPost created on June 24 2019 14:51 ET by Joe Burner

Thanks. I haven’t gotten the new GPU yet but I was shocked the 460 wasn’t what I thought. I thought it was 4GB not 2gb. 8gb from the rx 590 should be a great improvement. I couldn’t resist the price.

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

Posted onPost created on July 11 2019 14:33 ET by Joe Burner

So update on this GPU project. I had to order power cables to run to the power supply. Got everything hooked up and properly installed and an oversight on the power cables to power the GPU. Luckily a simple and small fix. I should have them Monday. It’ll feel good to be back in the skies again.

Joe Burner (DVA12617)

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