PC Spec sweet spot - Price vs performance ?

[J4CKO]

Might order a new one for FS2020, want to run it at 1080P at reasonable settings across 3 24 inch monitors.

32 GB ram is a given, is a 2080 Super a good buy or go AMD ?

CPU/Motherboard, whats something that will do the job without overkill ?

£1500 is the budget, plus whatever my I5 6600K/16GB/1060/Case/PSU/disks etc is worth, £400 ?

[Grrbang]

Interestingly three 1080p monitors is 25% fewer pixels than 4K. A 2080 can do 30-40fps at 4K in prerelease so should be able to handle at least 35-45fps in your setup. Fs2020 is a slow moving game so extreme FPS may not be needed.

If you wait for nvidia 3000 series, you will have even more choice.

A 2080 could be bottlenecked by your cpu, but really it depends on how taxing fs2020 is on the cpu. Try upgrading gpu first and decide on system later

[dalzo]

3700x with a 2080 super should be fine for the job

I’ve got a 3700x/2070s and it’s hitting ultra in most of the games I play(mostly escape from tarkov which is an unoptimised mess)

[J4CKO]

Grrbang said:

Interestingly three 1080p monitors is 25% fewer pixels than 4K. A 2080 can do 30-40fps at 4K in prerelease so should be able to handle at least 35-45fps in your setup. Fs2020 is a slow moving game so extreme FPS may not be needed.

If you wait for nvidia 3000 series, you will have even more choice.

A 2080 could be bottlenecked by your cpu, but really it depends on how taxing fs2020 is on the cpu. Try upgrading gpu first and decide on system later

Did think along those lines but not sure if my existing system will take say a 2080, space wise and PSU might not cope, its a 500w job I think, a quality one but when the Graphics card can draw 250W alone I dont think it will cope.

Motherboard is an Asus I70K with a 6600K Intel I5, Haswell generation, so its all half decent but prob all needs upgrading.

[J4CKO]

dalzo said:

3700x with a 2080 super should be fine for the job

I’ve got a 3700x/2070s and it’s hitting ultra in most of the games I play(mostly escape from tarkov which is an unoptimised mess)

Not had an AMD since the days of the Athlon cartridges, do they still represent better bang for buck these days ?

[J4CKO]

I have done a short term compromise to give me a bit of a fighting chance with FS2020 and ordered a 2060 Super for £380, will do for now, plus the 1060 still seems to be worth > £100 so will eBay that.

If it does the job, can move it over to a new machine or just go mad on a full new setup.

[Will O. Bey jr]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Intel has the highest clock per single core ting going on hence they are fastest in gaming applications.

[xeny]

J4CKO said:

Motherboard is an Asus I70K with a 6600K Intel I5, Haswell generation, so its all half decent but prob all needs upgrading.

6600K is Skylake isn't it? Pretty much the same performance/clock as anything Intel have shipped up to this point on the desktop.

If you don't think the case and PSU can cool and power a hotter GPU, it may be worth a case, PSU and GPU replacement (PITA I acknowledge) and then a new motherboard and CPU when either Ryzen 4000 desktop or Intel's 10nm desktop CPUs are available.

Otherwise you're spending a bunch of money for not much more single threaded performance, although you do get a lot more cores.

[J4CKO]

xeny said:

J4CKO said:

Motherboard is an Asus I70K with a 6600K Intel I5, Haswell generation, so its all half decent but prob all needs upgrading.

6600K is Skylake isn't it? Pretty much the same performance/clock as anything Intel have shipped up to this point on the desktop.

If you don't think the case and PSU can cool and power a hotter GPU, it may be worth a case, PSU and GPU replacement (PITA I acknowledge) and then a new motherboard and CPU when either Ryzen 4000 desktop or Intel's 10nm desktop CPUs are available.

Otherwise you're spending a bunch of money for not much more single threaded performance, although you do get a lot more cores.

Yep Skylake,

Bunged the 2060 in, went in very easily, fired right up and is running at about 70C, so think the case is ok, I thought the PSU was only 500 but in a rare case of forethought I put a 650W in it.

It was doing 50 FPS across three 24 inch screens for Xplane and was really smooth, now need to see how it copes with MSFS. Lot better with my Rift as well.

Could go out and get a mega PC but will see how this copes

[Grrbang]

J4CKO said:

Bunged the 2060 in, went in very easily, fired right up and is running at about 70C, so think the case is ok, I thought the PSU was only 500 but in a rare case of forethought I put a 650W in it.

Could go out and get a mega PC but will see how this copes

I've seen a youtube video running medium-high graphics on FS2020 on a 1060 super, so yours should do great.

Incidentally, I've learnt that overclocking is so easy now. Have you considered it? Just had some really good results, far better than expected.

[J4CKO]

It runs ok, but chugs like mad when it gets busy on the screen, I have it overclocked to about 4.4 GHZ, CPU just isnt really up to it for this if we are being honest, could turn stuff down but sort of defeats the object.

Going to bite the bullet and order a new Motherboard, CPU and ram, this has done 5 years and is still worth 50% of what I paid for it based on eBay sold prices, is been used every day an has been rock solid, it wasnt even high end then, was definitely the sweet spot price/performance wise though.

Thought it would be worthless by now, reckon its still £400 or so for the CPU/Mobo/Ram/GFX, paid £800, £740 plus another sixty later on for more ram.£100 odd per year, not bad value really.

So, now down to what to order, need to decide on AMD or Intel, will be 32 GB ram, like the idea of a high end Ryzen 3900X with 12 cores as should be fairly future proof but not as good for gaming as Intel, but still probably total overkill. Budgeting £100 plus whatever I get for my old kit.

PSU is 650W so should cope with a Ryzen plus 2060 as the new ones dont seem to draw any more current than my existing stuff.

May buy a new case, need to see if everything will fit and then there is the joy of getting Windows to not bh about it.

[RizzoTheRat]

Have a good read of the specs for FS, a lot of games don't really use that many cores, so you might be better off with less cores and higher clock speed.

Also make sure you think about cooling, I finally stopped upgrading my old PC (originally a 486DX2-66 ) and built a complete new machine some time back and went for a big air cooler, it's so much quieter then my old PC.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ is good for checking what's compatible and comparing prices between several suppliers

[xeny]

J4CKO said:

It runs ok, but chugs like mad when it gets busy on the screen, I have it overclocked to about 4.4 GHZ, CPU just isnt really up to it for this if we are being honest, could turn stuff down but sort of defeats the object..

If you've got that CPU overclocked to 4.4, are you going to get more than say 15% extra CPU performance?

Looking at posts (quoting a review) like this one: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=3911... makes me wonder if GPU is a bigger issue?

[Jinx]

4 cores 4 threads is a bottle neck at the moment in new games. Looking at the next gen consoles you really need to be thinking about at least 6 cores and 12 threads and preferably 8 and 16 (PS5 is 8 zen 2 cores). So whilst the 10600k is gaming king (overclocked it matches the 10900k) if going Intel then I'd want a 10700k.
Of course though for the same/similar price as the 10700k you could get a 3900X AMD 12 core 24 thread which when paired with an X570 (or B550) motherboard supports PCIe 4. This may not be important now but given the fuss being made over the Ps5's super fast storage and how this will change gaming it may start becoming necessary to have a good experience for any ports. It may also make a difference for the 3000 series nVidia cards (the recent Horizon zero dawn plays better with PCIE 3.0 x 16 than it does with x8 - so going forward this may become relevant) .

[xeny]

The reviewer I linked to had an 8700K, so 6 core 12 thread and was grumbling, so while in general I see your point, I'm not sure more threads are going that much help in this case.

[Jinx]

xeny said:

The reviewer I linked to had an 8700K, so 6 core 12 thread and was grumbling, so while in general I see your point, I'm not sure more threads are going that much help in this case.

What you can do is run at a higher resolution - when you force the bottleneck onto the GPU you can sometimes get improved frame rates ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVde0lIA9LQ&t=... - for an extreme example) .

It makes the most sense to get a balanced system for whatever the use case is - note: review site benchmarks are on a "clean" system and not how most people play games so extra threads are always advisable.

[J4CKO]

xeny said:

J4CKO said:

It runs ok, but chugs like mad when it gets busy on the screen, I have it overclocked to about 4.4 GHZ, CPU just isnt really up to it for this if we are being honest, could turn stuff down but sort of defeats the object..

If you've got that CPU overclocked to 4.4, are you going to get more than say 15% extra CPU performance?

Looking at posts (quoting a review) like this one: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=3911... makes me wonder if GPU is a bigger issue?

The CPU is at 100 percent across all four cores so was thinking being as thats pretty recent and cost £380, thats prob not the bottleneck at the moment but the CPU is.

Just pondering ordering a 3900X bundle from overclockers, I know Intel are better for gaming but the I9's seem to be pretty heavy on the power requirements which may bring a new PSU into the equation and I cant imagine I will notice a massive difference between a 10900K and a 3900X as either will be massively faster than my old setup.

[xeny]

J4CKO said:

The CPU is at 100 percent across all four cores so was thinking being as thats pretty recent and cost £380, thats prob not the bottleneck at the moment but the CPU is.

Ouch - that's pretty clear isn't it.

[J4CKO]

xeny said:

J4CKO said:

The CPU is at 100 percent across all four cores so was thinking being as thats pretty recent and cost £380, thats prob not the bottleneck at the moment but the CPU is.

Ouch - that's pretty clear isn't it.

Yep, just ordered my new bits.

3900X
Basic Gigabyte 450 Motherboard
500 GB WD M2
Standard Wraith Prism Cooler
32 GB 3000 DDR4

£824

Was looking at bundles on Overclockers but was going to be £1200 as they all include water coolers and fancy gamers motherboards.

After a bit of research, its clear that the 3900X doesnt need water cooling as it barely breaks a sweat and is a 7nm processor, so its more energy efficient than the Intels which are better for gaming but generate much more heat and draw more current. I was thinking my 650 W PSU might be marginal and didnt want to buy another.

Something appealing about the more efficient AMD offering, and its worth a try, I suspect it will do everything I need and more.

Didnt think I needed the later 550 chipset or the overclocking aspects, should be fast enough as is and a lot of it is a percent or two, its like getting an RS6 and assuming it needs remapping when in reality its plenty fast enough.

Like the idea of a 12 core, 24 thread CPU in what is a fairly cheap desktop PC, should be good for virtualisation stuff if I want to spin up SQL DB machines for work type stuff.

Should get £300 min for the old stuff. 1060 6GB, Mobo, 6600K, 16 GB, cooler.

Now need to work out how to get my windows license across onto it, not done that for a while, interested to see what difference an M2 drive makes, not used one before.

[xeny]

This review (and some of the comments) makes interesting reading....

https://www.pcgamer.com/the-gaming-hardware-doesnt...

also https://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/microsoft_fl...

Edited by xeny on Friday 21st August 07:42