GPU bottleneck?

[bloodhunter]

I like using MS FSX a lot and have quite a few add ons that require a decent GPU. For some reason I am not getting a good FPS with some of the add ons running and members of the flight sim community say my GPU is bottlenecking my CPU and a GTX 660 would pair up with the CPU much better.
(system spec can be seen in the sig strip.)

I just don't fancy spending on a GTX660 if it will hardly make a difference.

Your thoughts please.

 

[Rusty0611]

What GPU do you currently have as your signature is saying that you already have a 660?

 

[Gregster]

I also love FSX and have a few add ons and found that it is very CPU dependant. I ran it with a 2500K @ 4.4 and 2x680's at 5760x1080 and it was very sluggish. After going with a 3930K at 4.6 and the same GPU's, it bombed along.

As far as bottlenecking goes, no chance but do remember that the add ons are not optimised that well and will be quite a drain on resources.

What resolution are you using?

 

[bloodhunter]

What GPU do you currently have as your signature is saying that you already have a 660?

OOps, I meant to have said I don't fancy spending on a 680.

 

[PieEater]

As has been said it's your CPU speed that makes the biggest difference to FPS with FSX not your graphics card. A GTX680 would allow you to run with higher levels of filtering at the same speeds but I'm not convinced it would make a great deal of difference to FPS.

If you don't want to overclock your CPU further (surely you have more headroom?) then I think you would be better off looking at your FSX settings with a view to reducing the work the CPU is doing (autogen, AI traffic, shadows, water effects etc) which will enable you to have higher FPS. I assume you've looked at the various tweaks to the fsx.cfg file to improve performance !?!

I have a 1GB 560Ti and 2700k @ 4.8Ghz and lock my frame rate at 45 which I can keep most of the time but I tend to fly GA aircraft from smaller regional airfields.

/Edit: If you want to check whether your graphics card is a bottleneck run something like GPU-Z or MSI Afterburner to monitor GPU usage during an FSX session, obviously if GPU usage gets to 99% the you'll benefit from an upgrade but I bet you'll find it never gets that high.

 

[bloodhunter]

Thanks everyone. It seems to be working well again for some reason as I have made no changes either.
Using the default Cessna 172 and the frame rate set at unlimited I am getting around 130FPS and about 80FPS when using say the detailed 3D cockpit in PMDG 737NGX.