Most Worthwhile Upgrades for Sim Racing

[dom.au23]

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.

 

[dom.au23]

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]

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]

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

 

[dom.au23]

Yea, sorry. New to all this

 

[dom.au23]

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.

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]

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.

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X3D Review: Gaming Benchmarks

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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).

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]

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!

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?

 

[dom.au23]

Thanks. I’ll get to saving.

Thank you, and everyone else that’s helped on this post.

I’ll get the SSD in the meantime.

Happy gaming.

 

[dom.au23]

Cool. I’ve never updated my bios. Still in the 2018 version from what I can see.

The guides I have watched seem easy enough (famous last words)

Is that something I can do now, in advance or will it cause problems with my current cpu