Most Worthwhile Upgrades for Sim Racing

dom.au23

dom.au23

dom.au23

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Hi all,

I have recently stepped up how much I am Sim Racing and have upgrade my wheel from a G29 to a Moza R5 and its a world of difference. I always found myself going hot and cold with SIM racing and I wonder if part of the reason was the wheel making it not really feel as fun.

Anyway, this is a PC question.

I "commandeered" my sons PC that we bought him when he started senior school. Its intention was school work and light gaming so its a lower spec system. He doesn't use it as much and has a chrome book that he prefers so its mine for now, but i'll keep parts as i upgrade to rebuild him......something, if the time comes.

he current spec is as follows - I've added some bits myself to get games to work as it was pretty poor.
Stormforce/MasterCooler Case
AMD Ryzen 5 2400 4 core
MSI RX6600 (added myself)
Corsair 8gb x2 RAM 3200 & 3400 (added myself)
1tb HDD and 125gb SSD
ASUS Prime A320M-K Mobo BIOS version 4029 (30/11/2018)
750w PSU (added myself)
I play on a 27" curvered monitor, 165hz, 1ms refresh but also plan on a 34-40" Ultrawide as it doubles up well for work.

Le Mans Ultimate plays pretty well offline with mostly mid setting for the car, and key visuals and low on others (other cars, number of cars on screen etc) but can stutter a little at the start of race. Load times are terrible, I miss the practice and qualifying on online races, I know moving games to an SSD will help a lot here so maybe a bigger SSD that I can put my games on will help but I'd like to decide if i am doing a Mobo first so I can decide on what SSD I go for.

I'm considering a few upgrades but not sure which way to go. I thought about MoBo and CPU, or CPU only (will admit I'm nervous about the scale of that change, BIOS flashes etc as I've never done anything like this past clean out a PS4 and reapply thermal paste - 1 time it went well, the other time not so well).
Is it not woth just a CPU change and do i need a whole new CPU, MoBo and GPU.

I am not overly concerned with 4k or triples, and although 4k would be nice, 1440 with a high frame rate playing on mid to high works for me. I do play Final Fantasy too and the kids play ROBLOX if that counts for anything.

Any help is really appreciated as I am very much a PC noob but a fast learner and keen to improve my understanding - I've already read and watched loads and i think i know what i should do (CPU and MoBo) but it would be great to hear from some real people with experience.

Thanks in advance.
 
Le Mans Ultimate plays pretty well offline with mostly mid setting for the car, and key visuals and low on others (other cars, number of cars on screen etc) but can stutter a little at the start of race. Load times are terrible, I miss the practice and qualifying on online races, I know moving games to an SSD will help a lot here so maybe a bigger SSD that I can put my games on will help but I'd like to decide if i am doing a Mobo first so I can decide on what SSD I go for.
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So upgrading your CPU and using a SSD would be a great start and i don’t think you’d need a whole new system.

The stuttering is because the system is loading assets into RAM and that’s slow since the CPU isn’t very fast and the hard drive is slow.

Upgrading the BIOS isn’t difficult and if you follow the manufacturers instructions, you should be ok.

Something like an AMD 5700X3D and a 1tb SN850X SSD wouldn’t cost a lot.
 
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Hi and welcome.

As above the x3d chip would be a solid upgrade and a pcie3 m2 is cheap enough as that's what your limited to on that motherboard.

Another 16 GB of memory should help but wiyh only 2 dimm slots you going to have to buy 2 x 16gb and sell the older stuff.

How much you want to spend?
 
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Thanks both.

I want to spend as little as possible haha.

I've been looking around since i posted this and finding a x3d chip in the UK is not easy. I've seen 5600 and 5600x in stock near me but i heard the x3d is quite a jump for gaming.

If possible i'd start with the biggest bang for buck and get the rest shortly after IF i had to pay out for a better chip.

I have seen the 5600 for £120 and the 5600x for £180. I would imagine the x3d would cost more and i'd rather not go past £180 for the CPU. Given im coming from a 2400g, even a 5600 will be a big jump no?
 
dom.au23 said:
even a 5600 will be a big jump no?
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Yes.

dom.au23 said:
the 5600x for £180
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Don't pay £180 for a 5600X, that's a terrible price and nearly gets you a 5700X3D. Heck, even the 5700X should be much cheaper than that.

dom.au23 said:
I would imagine the x3d would cost more and i'd rather not go past £180 for the CPU.
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Some racing games/sims really love the X3D, so I'd definitely consider the 5700X3D even though it goes beyond your budget.

That said, if you're keeping the 6600 it is probably not worth it and I'd just buy the 5600.

dom.au23 said:
I am not overly concerned with 4k or triples, and although 4k would be nice, 1440 with a high frame rate playing on mid to high works for me. I do play Final Fantasy too and the kids play ROBLOX if that counts for anything.
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For some games you can actually get away with a RX 6600 at 1440p, or even at 4K, especially if they're older games or not very demanding. You also have FSR which is more useful for upscaling to 1440p/4K than it is at 1080p (native resolution is best for 1080p).

If you were to upgrade, I'd want a minimum of a 6750/6700 XT, which you can get for around £300. The 6800 non-XT @ £370 is also decent value and approaching 2x the raster of a 6600 non-XT. That said, upgrades within the same generation are always of dubious merit in terms of price/performance, so I'd suggest hanging on until there's something newer (though, you'll get more for your card if you sell it on now, so there's that to consider too).
 
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JollyJamma said:
So upgrading your CPU and using a SSD would be a great start and i don’t think you’d need a whole new system.

The stuttering is because the system is loading assets into RAM and that’s slow since the CPU isn’t very fast and the hard drive is slow.

Upgrading the BIOS isn’t difficult and if you follow the manufacturers instructions, you should be ok.

Something like an AMD 5700X3D and a 1tb SN850X SSD wouldn’t cost a lot.
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2tb sn850x down to £124 on ocuk at mo...pretty good bang for buck there
 
Sims love the 3D cache so a 5700X3D would be a perfect upgrade. No point replacing the motherboard. Just run the CPU at stock. The 5700X3D will outperform my 12600K and I have no performance issues even in the more graphically demanding sims like ACC and WRC.

An SSD is a must no matter what you're using the system for. I don't think you really need the SN850X, but it might be worth going for if it's on sale. My sim rig uses a 1TB SN770 and performs flawlessly.

I agree that a 6700 XT would be fine for an ultrawide. I run 3 x 27" 1440p monitors (7680 x 1440) and get great performance on high/ultra settings with a 6900XT.
 
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Thanks again for all the replies.

Anything above a 5600 isnt compatible with my motherboard. If i stick to a Ryzen 5 i think 5600 series is the best i can do. At £120 is that a decent deal? I'd then get a SATA and that should help thinks along until i get a better GPU?

After a quick test my CPU and GPU both give me about 90fps on a 27" at 1080p with mid-low settings on Le Mans Ultimate Sim racing game
 
dom.au23 said:
Thanks again for all the replies.

Anything above a 5600 isnt compatible with my motherboard. If i stick to a Ryzen 5 i think 5600 series is the best i can do. At £120 is that a decent deal? I'd then get a SATA and that should help thinks along until i get a better GPU?

After a quick test my CPU and GPU both give me about 90fps on a 27" at 1080p with mid-low settings on Le Mans Ultimate Sim racing game
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It is, I checked. You need to do a BIOS update.

the landing page hasn’t updated with its support list but the proper support page states that you can run the 5700X3D.

Spend the money and get the 5700X3D. It’s not really worth getting anything else since it’s that much faster than non X3D processors.
 
Ok, i may need to wait a bit then but ill get a SATA in the mean time as i can practically cook dinner in the load times
 
JollyJamma said:
It is, I checked. You need to do a BIOS update.

the landing page hasn’t updated with its support list but the proper support page states that you can run the 5700X3D.

Spend the money and get the 5700X3D. It’s not really worth getting anything else since it’s that much faster than non X3D processors.
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Sorry, i cant seem to find a Ryzen 5 5700x3d. Is that because its a Ryzen 7?

Also, where did you see it was compatible. I'm just nervous about potentially forking out a chunk of money for it not to work. I pick things up quickly but i am still a newbie at this.
 
dom.au23 said:
At £120 is that a decent deal?
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A 5600 non-X around £100 is a decent price, yes, but as mentioned already, the 5700X3D is highly recommended.

If you look at the results here, for example, in Assetto Corsa (5:33) the 5700X3D had 33% higher lows and averages than the 5700X. Not all games scale this well (some scale hardly at all), but racing and sim games are often the ones that do.

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dom.au23 said:
Ok, i may need to wait a bit then but ill get a SATA in the mean time as i can practically cook dinner in the load times
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dom.au23 said:
Yea, sorry. New to all this
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SSDs come in both SATA and PCI-Express versions, and both 2.5" and M.2.

I believe you have 1x M.2 slot (PCI-E 3.0) which is under the graphics card? And you have 4x SATA ports.

M.2 PCI-Express is preferable over SATA and 1TB versions are usually better value than 250/500 (sometimes MUCH better value).
 
Tetras said:
A 5600 non-X around £100 is a decent price, yes, but as mentioned already, the 5700X3D is highly recommended.

If you look at the results here, for example, in Assetto Corsa (5:33) the 5700X3D had 33% higher lows and averages than the 5700X. Not all games scale this well (some scale hardly at all), but racing and sim games are often the ones that do.

www.youtube.com

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D Review: Gaming Benchmarks

Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hardwareunboxedJoin us on Floatplane: https://www.floatplane.com/channel/HardwareUnboxedBuy relevant products ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com



SSDs come in both SATA and PCI-Express versions, and both 2.5" and M.2.

I believe you have 1x M.2 slot (PCI-E 3.0) which is under the graphics card? And you have 4x SATA ports.

M.2 PCI-Express is preferable over SATA and 1TB versions are usually better value than 250/500 (sometimes MUCH better value).
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Ok. I'll take a look later. Thanks again.

Its always so easy to look just one tier up, "for only £30 more I can get this one" and before you know it, you are £100s more haha. I appreciate you opinion and it makes sense. Given the game is still playable and runs far from terribly, i think i will wait a little and save, but get an SSD in the mean time to help with load times.

I may end up get going Mobo and CPU when i eventually do upgrade it.
 
dom.au23 said:
Its always so easy to look just one tier up, "for only £30 more I can get this one" and before you know it, you are £100s more haha.
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Yeah, in most cases, I get that and I agree with you, however.. the X3D CPUs are a special case, because if the game needs their cache the benefits are enormous and beyond anything you'd normally expect to achieve from a CPU upgrade.

They're also the best gaming CPU on the socket, so once you have that, there's nothing left to upgrade to.

A 5600 non-X is a more modest price, especially if you're uncomfortable doing the upgrade yourself anyway, so I think you'll find the boost in performance is still worthwhile.

dom.au23 said:
but get an SSD in the mean time to help with load times
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Using a SSD to game on is the best quality of life improvement of anything!
 
Tetras said:
Yeah, in most cases, I get that and I agree with you, however.. the X3D CPUs are a special case, because if the game needs their cache the benefits are enormous and beyond anything you'd normally expect to achieve from a CPU upgrade.

They're also the best gaming CPU on the socket, so once you have that, there's nothing left to upgrade to.

A 5600 non-X is a more modest price, especially if you're uncomfortable doing the upgrade yourself anyway, so I think you'll find the boost in performance is still worthwhile.


Using a SSD to game on is the best quality of life improvement of anything!
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No, I get it. There is what I’d like to do, and the reality of what I can and will be able to do.

Waiting to get the x3d makes most sense as realistically I won’t be upgrading the big 3 anytime soon so waiting a few more weeks/months to have a cpu that is fine for a long while makes sense.

Is the 5700x3d a Ryzen 7?
 
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