Is it worth me upgrading my current PC or just buying a whole new rig

coldste

coldste

coldste

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So I play a lot of Microsoft Flight simulator but looking at playing other games that require a good system for high quality graphics. Even using the NVIDA app to optimise the best settings which are on medium I still suffer with lag, played a very old game Euro truck simulator 2 on the highest settings, and my GPU and Memory is being pushed to the limit on task manger.

Originally I was only planning on upgrading the SSD. But would it be worth upgrading different parts of my current system over time or buying a new system? I’m not a PC expert I know what the parts do/are for but I wouldn’t know a good graphics card from a bad one. If you recommend just upgrading my current rig can you keep it simple and not too technical and possibly recommend anything, taking my PC to a small shop I’ve used in the past but would like to have a rough idea of what I’d like him to replace if possible. Thanks in advance



My current specs are:

Processor i7-11700K, 8 Core
Motherboard PRIME Z590-P
16gb Ram
Graphics card is NVIDA GeForce RTX 3070 (On display adapters it has Intel UHD graphics 750)
1TB HHD
Power supply is 650watts
4k Samsung TV, use a tv due to limited space.

The PC I’m looking at buying blows my current system out of the water.

Potential pc specs (copied from website which states that this system can be used on the highest settings)

Processor Intel i9 14900KF 24 Core
Memory 48GB DDR5 5600MHz
Graphics card GeForce RTX 4090 24GB (this costs what I paid for my pc)
SSD 2TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD
POWER SUPPLY: 1000W 80+ Gold Modular
Motherboard asus rog strix z790-f gaming wifi ddr5 motherboard
corsair icue h150i elite capellix xt 360mm liquid cooler (don’t know what this does)
 
I’d say it’s very late in the release cycle to spend bonkers money on a GPU now.

Flight sim can very memory and CPU intensive. Monitoring cpu and memory utilisation should give up a good indication what is limiting the performance.
 
@coldste
jumping from a 3070 to 4090 will be massive improvement, not only the shear grunt of the 4090 but the fact you have dlss frame gen, which in a slower game like flight sim is a boon as you're not so worried about latency
that being said flight sim love the 7800x3d.

the below shows a 13900k v 7800x3d at 4k...with a 4090...the intel system gets destroyed by the 7800x3d(4k results at 7mins 50ish)....watching a diff vid going from a 13900 to 14900k was a 2 to 3% icrease in fps, but that was at 1440p, and seeing as a 14900k is just an overclocked 13900k, is a waste of time and money


rest of your system...if you're using a hhd, that needs to be swapped for A M.2 NVME SSD straight away
650w psu...upgrading your gpu to a 4090, that'll need to be replaced
16gb ram...not enough really for flight sim..the 1% lows get cratered with 16gb ram at 4k...below guy testing 16 v 32 with a 3070 at 4k(16gb is 33fps, 1% lows 8fps, 32gb 34fps, lows 15fps)

i def feel for you trying to play at 30 fps with 8fps 1% lows


So keeping your current system, I'd upgrade ram, ssd, psu and gpu....ha ha ha...pretty much the pc

As a guide, someone here recently sold a 11700k/3070/32gbram/650w system for £720 cash ( @tamzzy your sale getting nice little reference again :cry:) which will give you an idea of what you'll get if you decide to sell the whole rig, as there's nothing really wrong with it and will make a nice machine for playing fortnite and the such(and hopefully not at 4K)

How confident are you at self build? can you follow instructions and build lego sets...then you can build a pc

If getting new pc, ditch intel and base it around a 7800x3d...much better for flight sim, uses a lot less power too so can just air cool it also, saving on the aio cost...OCuk can build the pc for you for £200 odd if you buy all the parts from them, but if you're confident, do it yourself...you can also shop around and save money as prices vary from plavce to place
 
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tamzzy said:
you will also find that for MSFS, the 5800x3d absolutely canes any other chip except the ryzen 7000x3d chips

see: https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d-cpu-review/4

Ei9IBWz.png
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Craig_d1 said:
As a guide, someone here recently sold a 11700k/3070/32gbram/650w system for £720 cash ( @tamzzy your sale getting nice little reference again :cry:)
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Lol. Mine was a non-k CPU with a non-z mobo (11700/b560). OP's 11700k/z590 combo would probably get slightly more with the right buyer/advertising.
 
coldste said:
Originally I was only planning on upgrading the SSD. But would it be worth upgrading different parts of my current system over time or buying a new system? I’m not a PC expert I know what the parts do/are for but I wouldn’t know a good graphics card from a bad one. If you recommend just upgrading my current rig can you keep it simple and not too technical and possibly recommend anything, taking my PC to a small shop I’ve used in the past but would like to have a rough idea of what I’d like him to replace if possible. Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

coldste said:
My current specs are:

Processor i7-11700K, 8 Core
Motherboard PRIME Z590-P
16gb Ram
Graphics card is NVIDA GeForce RTX 3070 (On display adapters it has Intel UHD graphics 750)
1TB HHD
Power supply is 650watts
4k Samsung TV, use a tv due to limited space.
Click to expand...
You sound like you're way out of the loop, so to give you some context.

For modern high-end 4K gaming we'd usually recommend something like a 7900 GRE as the entry point, but usually you'd expect to see a 7900 XTX or 4080 Super in a recently built 4K gaming PC.

According to TPU's GPU database, a 7900 GRE is 44% faster than a 3070 and a 4080 Super is 96% faster.

The 3070 isn't actually that bad for raw grunt, it can still play the majority of games at 4K, but the lack of VRAM is a limitation, especially with the quality settings you can viably use. Realistically, it is more like a higher-end 1080p or mid-1440p card.

Your CPU is getting on and against something like the 7800X3D you'd get much smoother gameplay, but in many games, it is still a competitive CPU and not far enough behind that you'll be disadvantaged much playing at 4K.

Since you can get the graphics card and upgrade the rest later if you're not happy, that's the route I'd be going down.

I must say though, 16GB can be pretty choppy with poor performance (especially in the lows) in some games and I think your GPU would make that even worse, if it is running out of VRAM and having to munch some of your system RAM.
 
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Hi, before spending tons of money on the new parts/whole rig, start from something that you can subjectively measure: if you but a SSD first if will increase the overall comfort of you experience with PC. I won't contribute to your fps counter, but with SSD if you are lack of ram, it will make it easier for the game to use your main drive (your perspective ssd) for Virtual Memory purpose (if ram is full, part of the ssd space can be used instead). The issue with hdd is that it is just very slow for this purpose (in intense ram-using games).
Also, you always can take this ssd to your new rig which is in my opinion a good start before making a significant contribution to your hardware.
 
Marmota said:
Hi, before spending tons of money on the new parts/whole rig, start from something that you can subjectively measure: if you but a SSD first if will increase the overall comfort of you experience with PC. I won't contribute to your fps counter, but with SSD if you are lack of ram, it will make it easier for the game to use your main drive (your perspective ssd) for Virtual Memory purpose (if ram is full, part of the ssd space can be used instead). The issue with hdd is that it is just very slow for this purpose (in intense ram-using games).
Also, you always can take this ssd to your new rig which is in my opinion a good start before making a significant contribution to your hardware.
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problem is I think that(looking at the 16/32gb ram vid), a 3070 just wont cut it for 4k gaming with flight sim..the guys rig is a 5600x/32gb ram and 3070...and he max's out at 34fps with 1% lows of 15fps, and with 16gb ram it was 8fps 1% lows...that's a jerky mess....that's not the pc fault, just the game and 4k gaming..putting ssd in will help maybe in the 1% lows, but that's about it

below a good vid comparing the 4080 with 4090..up at 19 mins you can see him flying around at 4k ultra with dlss on and frame gen and getting 122fps with a 4080...that's not that dissimmilar to a 4090 same settings at 7.41.....and this was using a 7950X, and as from previous the 7800x3d will beat these numbers, so new rig will get him from 30fps to 120+fps at 4k...that's a mighty jump...

trouble is, getting ssd/ and 32gb ram and then gpu...gpu will require beefier psu...getting to realms of just upgrading the lots and selling existing setup to help fund it all



below is using a 4070super with a 5800x3d...4k with dlss balanced and frame gen on gets 77fps(6min 50)...just shows how tough the flight sim is on hardware
 
tamzzy said:
not the internal parts @throwaway4372 and i are on about.

this is where you should be plugging in the hdmi cable:
Jo5F4lm.jpeg


if you've already done this then fine, not teaching you to suck eggs, but it's not an uncommon "issue"
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That has definitely helped a lot didn’t even know that part took HDMI cables. definitely helped using that. Going from 18FPS to a more stable 25-30FPS in more had demand areas. Looking at my GPU, if I wanted to increase my GPU memory would that mean a new graphics card?
 
Marmota said:
Hi, before spending tons of money on the new parts/whole rig, start from something that you can subjectively measure: if you but a SSD first if will increase the overall comfort of you experience with PC. I won't contribute to your fps counter, but with SSD if you are lack of ram, it will make it easier for the game to use your main drive (your perspective ssd) for Virtual Memory purpose (if ram is full, part of the ssd space can be used instead). The issue with hdd is that it is just very slow for this purpose (in intense ram-using games).
Also, you always can take this ssd to your new rig which is in my opinion a good start before making a significant contribution to your hardware.
Click to expand...
Looked up my motherboard PRIME Z590-P, if I’m right after reading online it can take up to a 128GB, so I can definitely see about more ram. What I’m looking for more is to be able to play on the higher graphic settings
 
coldste said:
That has definitely helped a lot didn’t even know that part took HDMI cables. definitely helped using that. Going from 18FPS to a more stable 25-30FPS in more had demand areas. Looking at my GPU, if I wanted to increase my GPU memory would that mean a new graphics card?
Click to expand...
yes, but i'd be suggesting to up your ram to 32gb ram in the first instance
this should help to smooth out the lows and give a better experience in general
 
coldste said:
Looked up my motherboard PRIME Z590-P, if I’m right after reading online it can take up to a 128GB, so I can definitely see about more ram. What I’m looking for more is to be able to play on the higher graphic settings
Click to expand...

I'm loading up FS on my pc here...chunky though so be tomorrow to test, but i'm running a 3070ti with a 7800x3d..playing on 4k tv though...at least it'll give an idea of what a cpu upgrade does..if you get more ram for your system, I'd sell your existing an buy a matched pair of 2x16gb 3200C16 ddr4. putting mismatched ram in your pc can lead to problems, and 2 sticks should be less strain on the memory controller

something like below...it's on the support pg for the mobo so will be fine

I'd also get a ssd, and as @Marmota says, this you can take to your new pc when you upgrade to a new rig. the m480 pro is a fast gen4 drive with 2tb, at a reasonable price..Seeing as your current board only has 1 slot, I'd go for this. 2tb will afford you a large size for games library and it's got a hefty endurance rating too

My basket at OcUK:

Total: £185.98 (includes delivery: £0.00)​
​
...however, this will just help with the 1% lows, so it's worth doing a bit of maths before you dust off the wallet​
​
if you want to get a gpu on top, esp a powerful one for 4k gaming, then you'll need to upgrade you psu also..650W wont be enough...this is when maths starts to play and whether it's worth it...you can't update your cpu..next gen is different mobo anyway...and so next would be a new mobo/cpu...so do you do it now, and put the money you're spending into a new platform...the amd isn't end of life , so what you buy now will be upgradeable in future with a more powerful cpu... but so cycle continues​
do you want to get a powerful gpu for your system? trying to work out what sort of framerates you're looking for?if it's around 60fps, then think 4070super would work well...shouldn't need psu iupgrade, and frame gen will give you a lift...if you want 100fps, then it's a different ballgame​
 
as a little guide, just doing the training on flight sim with landing I was getting 50/52fps with my 3070ti and the 7800x3d, running at 4k outputting to my tv...gpu running 99%, cpu 23%...didn't have 1% lows as was using nvidia overlay..my afterburner overlay was working properly
 
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Craig_d1 said:
as a little guide, just doing the training on flight sim with landing I was getting 50/52fps with my 3070ti and the 7800x3d, running at 4k outputting to my tv...gpu running 99%, cpu 23%...didn't have 1% lows as was using nvidia overlay..my afterburner overlay was working properly
Click to expand...
Did a few flights on and off, was getting 25-30fps stable on everything but using a modified version of Thailands Suvarnabhumi airport was getting noticeable drops of 18FPS, GPU still being worked to the max.
 
coldste said:
Did a few flights on and off, was getting 25-30fps stable on everything but using a modified version of Thailands Suvarnabhumi airport was getting noticeable drops of 18FPS, GPU still being worked to the max.
Click to expand...
ok, had a little play last night and did the training...Arrival, Follow VFR procedure to land section for a test as you fly parallel to runway, 2 turns and land so long enough to get an idea.
just 4k fullscreen, with TAA enabled I got below...
Vp7Hyndl.jpg


then I realised I wasn't using dlss, so enabled that .also enable nvidia low latency
IgrzHMVl.jpg



So, don't know if you want to go into your settings and enable dlss and low latency, and if you do the same section, you'll get a better idea of the fps you're getting from your intel cpu if you take into account the 3070ti is about 10% faster than the 3070


however below (2min48sec) shows flight sim run at 1080/1440 and 4k with a 3070/3070ti and 3080 all with a 5900X ...am4, non x3d cpu...the 3070 is only a few fps behind the 3070ti...so try on yours...if it's still way off the pace to what I'm getting, then you have a good idea of what the uplift will be getting an am5 7800x3d build...then it's your choice what to do
www.youtube.com

RTX 3070 vs 3070 Ti vs 3080 - 17 Game Comparison!

Nvidia’s new RTX 3070 Ti is here, but is it worth spending more over the RTX 3070, or should you spend more and go for the RTX 3080? I’ve compared all three ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com


you can also see in 2nd one I'm using over 17gb of ram...so 16gb just isn't really enough for this game.
ended up dpwnloading the dune add-on and flying the ornithopter :)
 
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