Upgrade advice for running Train and Plane sims.

geoffwbaOC

geoffwbaOC

geoffwbaOC

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I am looking to upgrade my present PC to run TSW 2020 and XPlane 11. The current PC will run Train Sim 2019 and XPlane but apparently TSW 2020 especially is much more demanding. I want to keep the present Corsair Carbide 300R tower case and just install a better spec motherboard, a better CPU and a better Graphics Card than the present GTX560Ti.
I have in mind an AMD Rayzen 5 CPU (TSW recommend Rayzen 5 1500X 3.7 ghz as a minimum) an AMD Radeon graphics card (TSW recommend Radeon R9 270) and a compatible Motherboard (ATX). The existing motherboard is a fairly old Asus P8Z77-V Pro so will need to be replaced with an AMD compatible one.
I am happy to keep the present case and hard drives to cut down on costs and not break the bank.
I am not interested in PC games so don't really need a high-end system.
Any advice on this upgrade would be appreciated.
As an afterthought would the present Corsair TX650 ATX (650W total power) power supply be adequate?
 
geoffwbaOC said:
I am looking to upgrade my present PC to run TSW 2020 and XPlane 11. The current PC will run Train Sim 2019 and XPlane but apparently TSW 2020 especially is much more demanding. I want to keep the present Corsair Carbide 300R tower case and just install a better spec motherboard, a better CPU and a better Graphics Card than the present GTX560Ti.
I have in mind an AMD Rayzen 5 CPU (TSW recommend Rayzen 5 1500X 3.7 ghz as a minimum) an AMD Radeon graphics card (TSW recommend Radeon R9 270) and a compatible Motherboard (ATX). The existing motherboard is a fairly old Asus P8Z77-V Pro so will need to be replaced with an AMD compatible one.
I am happy to keep the present case and hard drives to cut down on costs and not break the bank.
I am not interested in PC games so don't really need a high-end system.
Any advice on this upgrade would be appreciated.
As an afterthought would the present Corsair TX650 ATX (650W total power) power supply be adequate?
Click to expand...

whats your screen rez and hz ?

PlaneX slightly better then most flight sims as coded for 4 cores and can stretch over six. but still to rule of thumb is fastest clock speed you can get!

kicker is with xplane is VRAM fills up fast. with all settings and mods etc you can max out 11GB of VRam and thats 1080ti/2080ti levels! plus draw distance and others can hit both CPU and GPU performance !

MS new flight sim hopefully will be fully multicored !! really push their DX12 :D

seems recommend is 1700x 8 core 16 thread or i7 3*** 4 core 8 thread.

ryzen 3600/x should be more then enough- has the speed of older intels over first Gen ryzen 1700 but increased performance as well even with less cores.

keeps costs down;

Ryzen 3600 + 16gb 3000hz + B450 motherboard + RX 580

Able to splash a little more cash then Vega 56.

Ryzen 3600 will cover you for future flight sims - they push 3600x is you need extra dual core speed without having to manually overclock or enable PBO .
GPU is all about budget. Want to play those games nicely then Vega 56 min - work your way up from there with budget
 
Quartz said:
A Maxwell Titan X should be a good fit.
Click to expand...

its insane seeing how many titans are paired with I5/ i7s for flight sims with people not bothering with ryzen or 6+ core intels as it doesn't make a different but hammering down the GPU £££

i know Plane X was looking at Vulkan ... seems they have spent to long and MS will roll out FlightSim with DX12 support - still take i titan i guess though
 
Minimum and recommended specs for TSW2020 (now it's been updated) are:-


  • MINIMUM:
    • OS: 64-bit Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8 / 8.1 or Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel Core i5-4690 @ 3.5 GHz or AMD Ryzen 5 1500X @ 3.7 GHz
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti or AMD Radeon R9 270 with 2 GB VRAM or more
    • DirectX: Version 10
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 20 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
    • Additional Notes: Requires mouse and keyboard or Xbox Controller

  • RECOMMENDED:
    • OS: 64-bit Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows 8 / 8.1 or Windows 10
    • Processor: Intel Core i7-4790 @ 3.6 GHz or AMD Ryzen 7 1700 @ 3.8 GHz
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 480 with 4 GB VRAM or more
    • DirectX: Version 10
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 20 GB available space
    • Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
    • Additional Notes: Requires mouse and keyboard or Xbox Controller

Frow what they are saying over at UKTrainsim (TSW2020 forum here) the update has hit performance big time and even GTX1080's are seeing big performance hits so it seems that a beefy system is required at least until Dovetail Games optimise it again. Even before the update it was a resource hog so ignore the minimum and use the recommended as a minimum if you want to immerse yourself in it. I tried the beta when owners of Train Simulator was offered it a couple of years ago and hated it due to the amount of faffing around so it was deleted pretty quickly. I didn't think there was anything special about it. Yes the graphics were a little better but TS2019 looks pretty good at max settings plus there are the AP Sky and Weather, Lighting and Track enhancement packs that makes it even better. I have too much time (1500+ hours) and money invested in TS2019 to move to anything else which makes TSW2020 pretty irrelevant for me.

As above, current flight sims are sadly pretty much single threaded so cpu speed and a decent gpu with lots of vram are a must.
 
That's very useful thanks. If I do upgrade at least I will still be able to run TS2019 with better performance (I've noticed it does seem to work my current CPU rather hard !). From what I have seen the gameplay in TSW 2020 does seem more interactive.
 
orbitalwalsh said:
What's your budget ?
Click to expand...
Having had a look st some of the current prices for PC hardware, I reckon around £500. When buying a replacement motherboard I would also need to get new memory cards (I think 8gb should suffice) . I have 8gb of memory at present but they are DD3R and therefore incompatible with new generation MBs which all seem to be DDR4. To contain costs a bit I wonder whether a visit to a local computer fair would be worthwhile.
 
geoffwbaOC said:
Having had a look st some of the current prices for PC hardware, I reckon around £500. When buying a replacement motherboard I would also need to get new memory cards (I think 8gb should suffice) . I have 8gb of memory at present but they are DD3R and therefore incompatible with new generation MBs which all seem to be DDR4. To contain costs a bit I wonder whether a visit to a local computer fair would be worthwhile.
Click to expand...

whats your current CPU sorry ? seen the board but not the CPU

GPU really needs to be replaced

dig deeper , just slight !


CODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £613.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)


roughly same power, maybe 1-5 fps slower but 3 yr UK warranty vs Vega's 2


ODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £632.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​

least costly



My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £542.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)​
​

RX 570 4GB would get you in pricing but could run out of VRAM​
 
Last edited:
orbitalwalsh said:
whats your current CPU sorry ? seen the board but not the CPU

GPU really needs to be replaced

dig deeper , just slight !


CODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £613.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)


roughly same power, maybe 1-5 fps slower but 3 yr UK warranty vs Vega's 2


ODE
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £632.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​
least costly



My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £542.06 (includes shipping: £11.10)
​
RX 570 4GB would get you in pricing but could run out of VRAM​
Click to expand...
Further to my initial enquiry, I have been looking at various reviews and think the following combination could work for me:
AMD Ryzen 7 2700X (I have chosen this over the Ryzen 5s as it seems to be the only CPU that comes with the better AMD Prism cooler)
GPU Radeon RX570
MB MSI X570

As regards the RX570 running out of VRAM I am not quite sure what this means, is it important when running games ?

I reckon this combination would cost around £530, plus a minimum of £45 for the memory kit. Would there be any advantage in spending say en extra £30 for the memory suggested ?
 
Vram is the gpu's onboard memory and depending on the game the more of it you have the better. TS2019 has been 64bit for the last year or so and uses a shed load of memory both system and vram. In some of the routes I have observed upwards of 6Gb system memory and 4.5Gb of vram which explains why it tended to crash a lot in high scenary areas when it was still 32bit. Sadly they have done nothing to improve cpu usage and it still hammers a single core for the most part. I wouldn't use a RX570 4Gb unless you are willing to drop the detail levels quite a bit. To be honest if you aim to do that there is not much point in playing it because at detail levels less than level 9 things such as platforms, bridges and other things disappear. AMD side I wouldn't go less than a RX580. I should imagine that on TSW2020 the vram is even more important and if people are struggling with decent fps on GTX1080's then it truly must need a beefy card.
 
Following on from my enquiries about a system for TSW and Flight Sim, I have been looking at the motherboard options. I don't want a mATX board as recommended here but rather an ATX board. Which board is best for the Ryzen 3000 series processors, B450 or RX570? On a video someone mentioned a 550 board which might be coming out but I don't know any more about that. I can go up to about £200 for the board and I want something which is future proof for maybe 5 years. As I might be spending more on a motherboard I am considering a second hand GPU, of which there seem to be plenty on Ebay.
 
geoffwbaOC said:
Following on from my enquiries about a system for TSW and Flight Sim, I have been looking at the motherboard options. I don't want a mATX board as recommended here but rather an ATX board. Which board is best for the Ryzen 3000 series processors, B450 or RX570? On a video someone mentioned a 550 board which might be coming out but I don't know any more about that. I can go up to about £200 for the board and I want something which is future proof for maybe 5 years. As I might be spending more on a motherboard I am considering a second hand GPU, of which there seem to be plenty on Ebay.
Click to expand...

no real difference between matx and atx at low range prices apart from size . ATX now needlessly big for what they are personally. ITX boards have better design and features surprisingly and are smaller :D

hunting down b550 dates now . If going second hand GPU then pushing GTX 1070 for vram and performance but wouldn't pay anything thats close to VEGA 56 Pricing , as then might as well get it new
 
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